USA Patriot Act the Uniting

USA PATRIOT Act

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorists (USA PATRIOT) Act, was written into law following the terrorist attacks on America, on September 11th, 2001.

While the intent of the law is to allow federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism, it has received much debate. From the effectiveness of Section 311, to the appropriateness of the new admissions policy, to the expanding unchecked surveillance opportunities for federal agencies, much concern still remains about the PATRIOT Act.

One of the most powerful sections of the PATRIOT Act is Section 311.

Section 311 is one of the tools the United States has developed to address the threat of terrorist financing and money laundering.

The primary goals of Section 311 involves strengthening American measures to detect, prevent, and prosecute international money laundering, as well as terrorism financing to the United States.

As Yager (2008) notes, this Section provides a mechanism for the government to either prohibit "U.S. financial institutions from maintaining correspondent accounts with a foreign financial institution if the account involves jurisdictions or institutions found to be of primary money laundering concern, or to require recordkeeping and reporting on certain accounts."

Since 2002, the Department of the Treasury has used this mechanism to take action against eight targeted financial institutions.

However, there is still question about whether or not Section 311 is being used as effectively as it could be.

In addition to the questionable effectiveness of Section 311, of the PATRIOT Act, the appropriateness of the new admissions policy created by the PATRIOT Act is also up for debate. Clintora (2008) surmises that thousands of men and women, suffering from violence in their own countries, are then re-victimized by the PATRIOT Act. Refugees and asylum seekers that provide 'material support', often involuntarily, are classified as terrorists, under this new system. The result is thousands of people denied the necessary refuge that they seek. Clintora condemns this as a "major policy gap (that) threatens not only human rights in individual countries but also jeopardizes international and regional stability and American regional influence and economic interests."

Kreimer (2007) expounds upon the fact that few legislators had time to fully read the PATRIOT Act, when it was first proposed. Once enacted, there was significant concern about the expansion of powers for unchecked surveillance. However, many of the Acts provisions were subject to a four-year sunset requirement. It was believed that Congress would carefully examine how organizations, such as the FBI, utilized their power under the PATRIOT Act, when deciding whether or not to certain provisions would go by the wayside come 2005. Yet, in 2006, after much political wrangling, most of the PATRIOT Act was reenacted, with little change to the original wording, continuing the concern for civil liberties.