Pros And Cons Of The Patriot Act 2005

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Primary Source report Controversy over the USA PATRIOT ACT (2001, 2005) George W. Bush and Suzanne E. Spaulding After the attacks by the predominantly Saudi extremists on 9-11, the administration of then President George ‘Dubya’ Bush went into overdrive to be seen as proactive in the effort to make sure that the attacks could not be repeated. With the passage of The USA Patriot Act, the then President Bush asserted, we would be handed our intelligence and law enforcement officers the required tools and abilities to fight this new and ‘present danger.’ The document lays out the assertions of the President as of October 26, 2001 as given during a speech at the White House. Also included are the contrasting comments and opinions of Suzanne Spaulding, who has served in the intelligence community for 25 years under both Republican and Democratic presidents and is currently Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. In his speech, from the outset, Bush asserts to the American public that the given tools and justifications hidden within the USA Patriot Act are necessary in the ‘War on Terror.’ He also states that law enforcement would be used, despite later making it quite clear that his administration felt it …show more content…

Spaulding’s background and qualifications to comment on the USA Patriot Act are beyond reproach and not questioned by either party. Her criticism focuses most directly upon the sharing of information and the removal of the wall between what was formally accepted as a given withy that sharing- that there was a need to distance and prohibit the wall between law enforcement and intelligence entities, whether that be the CIA, the DIA, or the NSA. She elaborates, but the issue, while detailed and correct, boils down to the need for a separation between the information ostensible gathered in the ‘war on terror’ in all its guises, and the normal everyday law enforcement information

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