Patriot Act

3 Pages 706 Words

USA Patriot Act
Due to the acts of terrorism that occurred on September 11th 2001, the United States government enacted new powers to protect the country against potential acts of terrorism. Thus the USA Patriot Act was enacted on October 24, 2001. In Section 1 of the act, the USA Patriot Act has been cited as the “Uniting and Strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism.” Since the act went into effect, there has been a wide array of opinions on whether or not the federal government should be allowed the powers listed in the act. This paper will talk about some of the positive consequences as well as negative consequences of the act.
Advantages
There are opinions of people that feel that the USA Patriot Act was designed effectively to protect the safety of the United States. One advantage found was that the banks are required to obtain social security and/or federal tax id numbers of account holders to check to see if these people are on the Treasury Department’s own Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) terrorist list (Raab, 2004). This would allow the banks to track and know where funds are going to and to see if people are supporting terrorist groups. Thomas Hazen, author of the Law and Securities Regulation, feels that the act assists in the detection and prevention of money laundering (America’s Intelligence Wire, January 6, 2005). The prevention of money laundering not only assists in the aid of the economy by can prevent funding of terrorism. This not only assists the United States from these acts but from other nations that have any financial dealings with the United States. The act allows the apprehension and investigation of potential terrorist threats in any means. This is viewed by many as a small sacrifice to pay for the possible loss of a few civil liberties.
Disadvantages
In some peoples opinions there are disadvantages to the powers given to the g...