THE USA PATRIOT ACT

A recent look into what both sides think about the USA PATRIOT Act, I have come to the conclusion that the Act is not a bad thing.

The Act is little more than a revamping of legislature already in place (in regards to terrorism). The specific legislature I am talking about would be the FISA, the USA Act, and the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act. These Acts were combined to create the PATRIOT Act. The USA Act was meant to limit the abuse of power by the CIA and FBI, thusly amending the FISA, and the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act was made to curtail the financial activities of terrorist groups.

What the PATRIOT Act does is give agencies the appropriate tools to more effectively do their jobs. I don't think this is bad. With the biggest outcry against the Act that I can find being the infringement on civil liberties, I find it a shallow reasoning to disagree with the purpose of the Act. I don't think "the" government is out to get Joe Citizen, but rather hinder and eventually quash terrorist activities. If this means detaining people that are suspected of terrorism, that's alright. As it turns out, there are quite a lot of people involved in terrorist networks. These people are systematically being weeded out and brought to justice thanks to the Act. To say that the Act has prevented a terrorist attack on US soil is something, in my opinion, that should be based on faith. I don't want to know if it did; that would mean in order to be proved wrong (i.e. a failure to prevent attacks on US soil), the cost in human lives and damage to US equities would be staggering.

What's wrong with giving agencies the tools to complete their primary function (that being to keep the US safe from terrorism)? With the SAFE Act being proposed (June of this year as I recall), there are to be checks and balances made to the PATRIOT Act and correct further abuse of power. This Act, like so many other powerful documents in US history is a living, breathing one. What's wrong with that?
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