On The USA PATRIOT ACT

A discussion thread over on Right-Thinking raises some concerns over the
PATRIOT Act, which I believe are legitimate enough to warrant an analysis here.

Basically the discussion breaks down like this. On one side you have people such
as myself who believe the Act is a necessary piece of legislation to help combat the
greatest threat this country currently faces, terrorism. On the other side there are those who believe that the Act over-reaches, or that it is a best redundant.

While I can respect the view of those who feel the Act over-reaches, I do believe
they are quite literally missing the overall picture. All the Act did was make
certain legal tools that were already available to law enforcement and apply them
to the War on Terrorism, as to waging it here in the United States. That's
all the Act did, no more no less. Also, I can understand the potential for those laws and provisions to be abused. Search warrants for example. Any law enforcement
type will tell you that there are certain judges who have a looser definition of probable cause than another judge. That's human nature, one person's definition may not be the same as another's. And that a law enforcement officer would get a search warrant from the judge with the looser definition. Also, human nature, the well-worn path and all that. However, that has been fact in the law enforcement arena since the actual passage of criminal laws, and there have never been any wholesale abuses committed that I am aware of. As I do believe that I would have been able to discover such abuses after looking for them, which I haven't. In short, is the system abused? Yes. Does that mean rampant, wholesale abuse occurs? No. Will a corrupt law enforcement officer abuse the Act? Probably. Does that mean the Act itself is corrupt? No.

In the larger sense of the debate I can appreciate the concerns that people may or may not have in regards to the Act. But the argument that the Act has widespread potential to be abused is beside the point. All criminal laws have the potential to be abused, for that is the very nature of the criminal justice system. However, if we analyze any law, or potential law, for it's ability to be abused, then no law will ever be passed or enforced. And that is just as worse as doing nothing.

While I appreciate the thoughts and concerns of my friends over on Right-Thinking, their argument that the Act has the potential to be abused fails to recognize the over-all picture.

That the law also may be redundant is a different matter altogether. In the wake of September 11th the lawmakers in Washington wanted to be seen as doing something to make us all safer. That the Act may have included some redundancy is beside the point. For there are worse things that I can fault the politcos in Washington for than being redundant.

In any objective analysis the PATRIOT Act just took tools that law enforcement had available to it since the mid-80's and applied them to the 21st century. That the Act has those provisions does not mean that the Act itself is capable of being abused, indeed the very presence of those provisions proves that the Act is a safe and effective tool for law enforcement.