USA
Patriot Act Section 218
Leslie
K. Penny
Research
Assignment #7.1
Chancellor
University
USA Patriot Act Section 218
Immediately following the terrorist
attacks upon our county on Sept 11, 2001, the USA Patriot Act was put into effect
to deter and enforce punishment on those out there in the process of performing
terrorists acts in the United States and around the world, as well as to
improve investigatory tools, to reinforce U.S. procedures to thwart, detect and
prosecute international money laundering and financing of terrorism as well as
other purposes (USA Patriot Act).
In this essay, focus will be on section 218, and the writers opinion
whether section 218 has helped law enforcement and should be kept as part of
the Act or is not needed and should be removed.
Also, a definition will be given further in on National Security Letters
and how they are used by law enforcement in the war on terror.
Section 218 of the USA Patriot Act
lets law enforcement agencies to avoid the Fourth Amendment's probable cause
requirement. This provision extends the
authority of the FBI to conduct wiretaps on what they believe to be foreign
intelligence as well as physical searches that can be conducted without showing
probable cause that is required for wiretaps and physical searches in criminal
investigations (USA Patriot Act).
The author of this article, How
the Anti-Terrorism Bill Enables Law Enforcement to Use Intelligence Authorities
to Circumvent the Privacy Protections Afforded in Criminal Cases, claims
this provision is not necessary because "evidence gathered in intelligence
wiretaps is now often admissible in criminal prosecutions." This writer is unaware of how accurate the
author of the above article is but he claims that "courts will exclude the
evidence gathered from surveillance conducted under section 218 because the
probable cause of crime requirement was not met for a search conducted
primarily to gather evidence of crime" which as a result could potentially
allow the terrorist to go free. This
seems rather contradictory if section 218 does, in fact, allow the courts to
use intelligence acquired from these wiretaps and searches as legal under the
Patriot Act. So, how the writer of the
above article claims the evidence will be dropped boggles this writer.
In this writers opinion, Section 218
should be kept as part of the Act as long as its terrorist related and not
general crime related. Those general
crimes that are not considered terrorist attacks should continue to need
probable cause for a wire tap and any searches conducted. However, for the safety of us all, 218 should continue to be used as prescribed
towards terrorist attacks. This writer
would like to note that, as the author of the cited article above described, if
such evidence can't be upheld in court then what's the point? Further evidence has proven that Section 218,
especially when used with section 503, has been very helpful to law enforcement
agencies (Justice, 2004).
On to the next subject, National
Security Letters are "secret subpoenas that are issued directly by the FBI
without any court involvement" (National Security Letters). These letters can be signed by a special
agent in charge that demand detailed information about ones private internet
communications taken directly from ones ISP, web mail service, or other communications
provider without the courts review or approval, without the individual being
suspected of a crime or without having to let that individual know what they
are doing (National Security Letters). National Security Letters also allow the FBI
to see private details such as "basic subscriber records, including ones
true identity and payment information, ones internet protocol address and the
IP address of every web server that individual communicates with, the identity
of anyone using a particular IP address, username, or email address, the email
address or username of everyone that particular individual emails or IM's, or
who emails or IM's in return, and the time, size in bytes, and duration of each
of the individuals communications, and possible even the web address of every
website that individual has visited" (National Security Letters). Because of the USA PATRIOT Act, the only
requirement the government must meet in order to issue a National Security
Letter is that the FBI has to certify in the letter that the information they
are "seeking is relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against
international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities" (National Security Letters).
In conclusion, is section 218 really
a necessary policy in our fight against terrorist acts? This writer believes there will always be the
advocates for and those against with all of their facts and opinions to back
their views but in the end, the public safety is paramount. However, for section 218 to work, it has to
be used as intended and not for other crimes.
This writer has learned much where National Security Letters are
concerned. There are many out there in
the US who don't actually know this is going on nor what the USA Patriot Act
does. This is a lesson that everyone
should self educate themselves about.
Works Cited
Chang,
N. (2001). The USA Patriot Act. Retrieved 10 21, 2012, from
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/USAPAanalyze.html
Justice, U. D. (2004). Report from the
Field: The USA PATRIOT Act at Work. Retrieved 10 12, 2012, from
justice.gov:
http://www.justice.gov/olp/pdf/patriot_report_from_the_field0704.pdf
National Security Letters. (n.d.). Retrieved
10 21, 2012, from Surveillance Self-Defense : https://ssd.eff.org/foreign/nsl
USA Patriot Act. (n.d.). Retrieved
10 21, 2012, from FinCEN Financial Crimes Enforcement Network:
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/
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