Since President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 26, 2001, USA PATRIOT Act has quickly become, and continues to be, one of the most recognized names of any recent statute enacted by Congress. More than two years following its enactment, the PATRIOT Act has been the subject of innumerable public forums, anti-PATRIOT Act resolutions adopted in more than 250 counties and municipalities, media programs, panel discussions, law school debates, a host of books and articles, and a speaking tour by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

There are lawsuits underway over the statute, actions in Congress to modify it, and at least one decision by a Federal court declaring a part of the PATRIOT Act unconstitutional. While there is no hope of success for any effort in Congress to repeal the PATRIOT Act in its entirety--and certainly President Bush would never sign any such bill even if Congress passed it--the concern about the statute seems to only increase.

For those who do not yet know, the USA PATRIOT Act is actually an abbreviation. The full title is: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." Proposed by the Administration just days after the September 11 event, the Act was passed at the height of post September 11 reaction, when ruins of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were literally, still smoldering. The vote in Congress on the PATRIOT Act was 257 to 66 in the House, and 98 to 1 in the Senate.

The statute is a collection of bills either under consideration by Congress prior to September 11 or proposed by the Administration immediately afterwards. An original working title was the "USA Act." One Title of the Act, Title III dealing with bank financing and money laundering, was a separate bill until it was included in the final version of the PATRIOT Act.

In its final form, the Act has 10 titles, and more than 150 sections. Not every word in the statute is offensive in terms of civil liberties. Some of the language is clarification of existing law. However, by and large, the USA PATRIOT amends or expands nearly 15 current federal statutes, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as introducing a wide range of new provisions. To be sure, there is enough in the PATRIOT Act to keep federal law enforcement agencies and courts busy for many years.

The PATRIOT Act stands as a watershed statute in American political events of the past 25 years. Even more than the massive reshuffling of federal bureaucracy that occurred in the Homeland Security Act to come many months later, the PATRIOT Act represents a dramatic change in how certain federal agencies work with each other, how the federal government has prioritized the war on terrorism, how surveillance and information sharing will be conducted, and how suspect aliens in this country will be treated from now to the foreseeable future.

It is a shame, indeed, that cooler heads did not prevail in Congress in the Fall of 2001, and that more time was taken to read and review this complex statute before approving it. The White House and the Justice Department were demanding that Congress approve the statute in order to give the Administration the "tools" it needed for the war on terrorism. But as it now turns out, according to the Justice Department itself, the government has yet to make use of three of the statute's most extreme provisions: Section 215 allowing access by the FBI to "any tangible thing" in investigating terrorism, Section 412 allowing for detention of aliens in this country suspected of acts of terrorism, and Sections in Title IX of the statute that create a new federal crime of "domestic terrorism" and expand sentences for terrorist crimes.

Given the continuing concern about the statute appearing across the county, the more than 250 anti-PATRIOT Act resolutions adopted by cities and counties (and even three State legislatures) and with the benefit of two years of hindsight, there are now various attempts in Congress to modify or "fix" the PATRIOT Act. It remains to be seen which of any of these efforts will succeed.

One attempt that succeeded at least in the House was an amendment to a federal appropriations bill, submitted by Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, called the "Otter Amendment." This amendment would remove federal funding for the "sneak and peek" search warrant provisions of Title II (Section 213). The bill awaits Senate action under separate or companion legislation there, although any bill approved by Congress is unlikely to be signed by President Bush. Among the other current Congressional items involving the PATRIOT Act:

--Protecting the Rights to Individuals Act (PRI Act, S 1152). The PRI Act is sponsored by Sens. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), and so is being called the Murkowski-Wyden bill. This comprehensive bill would, among other provisions: roll back many of the FISA amendments of the PATRIOT Act, limit access under FISA to business records, limit the use of "roving wiretaps," narrow the definition of "domestic terrorism," and require stricter and more frequent reporting to Congress.
--The SAFE Act (Security and Freedom Ensured) (S 1709). This Act, sponsored by Sens. Larry Craig (R-Indiana) and Richard Durbin (D-Illinois), would mirror some of the provisions of the "Otter Amendment" against sneak and peek searches under PATRIOT Act Sec. 213. It would limit the use of sneak and peek searched and would limit government's ability to search personal information such as from a computer, without probable cause. (A House version is under H 3352 and includes a revised definition of "domestic terrorism.")
--Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act (S 436), sponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy (R-Vermont), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), and Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania). Similar to the SAFE Act, this bill would require that basic information on warrants sought by the FBI from the FISA Court be reported to Congress. (A similar bill in the House is H 2429, the Surveillance Oversight and Disclosure Act).
--Reasonable Notice and Search Act (S 1701), sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin)--the only Senator to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act. This bill would also affect the sneak and peek authorization of USA PATRIOT Act Sec. 213. It would narrow the circumstances for these searches, limit the "delay" period for notification after the search is conducted, requires reporting to Congress, and includes a December 31, 2004 sunset clause.
--The Freedom to Read Protection Act (HR 1157), will remove bookstores and libraries from the pervasive influence of Section 215 (although the government still says that it has not made use of that Section). A parallel statute in the Senate is the Library and Bookseller Protection Act (S. 1158).
--Personal Records Privacy Act (S 1507). This would require the government, before obtaining library, medical, and other personal records in an intelligence investigation, to show that the person whose records are being sought, is a specific suspect in the investigation. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as amended by the PATRIOT Act, the government can obtain these records only by certifying that they are necessary for the investigation.

There are even more comprehensive bills under consideration. The Ben Franklin True Patriot Act (HR 3171), sponsored by Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and with more than 30 co-sponsors. It would repeal 15 key sections of the original USA PATRIOT Act, including Secs. 213 and 215. A somewhat similar bill in the Senate, the Patriot Oversight Restoration Act (S 1695), sponsored by Senator Leahy and others, would extend the current sunset date of December 31, 2005 to 12 additional sections of the PATRIOT Act.

So far, none of these bills has passed both houses of Congress, and so none of them has been signed by President Bush. It is doubtful indeed that he would sign any of them. But these various pieces of legislation are definite indicators of the level of concern in Congress over potential abuse of the PATRIOT Act, especially when it comes to library and bookstore records, personal records or private information, and the use of sneak and peek warrants.

There are also some statutes of immediate concern which would expand government power and authority, beyond even the PATRIOT Act. One is the CLEAR Act (Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal) (HR 2671), introduced by Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Georgia). The CLEAR Act would mandate that local law enforcement personnel assist in enforcing federal immigration laws. The bill would in effect turn local police into immigration agents.

The VICTORY Act (Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organization), to be possibly introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would dramatically change the landscape of federal drug enforcement and make drug trafficking and certain other drug offenses a terrorist crime. It is difficult to minimize the sweeping effect of such a statute.

Meanwhile, the Administration recently achieved at least one PATRIOT Act victory in Congress. An amendment to an intelligence authorization bill has expanded the definition of "financial institution"--something sought under the so-called "PATRIOT Act II" (a proposed statute that would go beyond the PATRIOT Act and to date has not been introduced in Congress in its entirety). The expansion of that definition brings the full reach of the PATRIOT Act, including the powerful and complex Title III of the statute, into many other areas of American life, including casinos, credit card companies, insurance agencies, and even post offices. President Bush signed the bill on October 13, the day Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq.

Court activity on the USA PATRIOT Act, so far, has not been nearly as extensive. To date, in only one case has a portion of the USA PATRIOT Act been ruled unconstitutional. A federal district court in California, in Humanitarian Law Project v. Ashcroft, has ruled that language in the PATRIOT Act making "material support" for terrorism a crime, is too vague. The court made its ruling along the same lines of a similar ruling in a similar provision of the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which for the first time made "material support" for terrorism a crime. The court said that "material support" provision can include all, types of other support, such as humanitarian aid, that would not be part of actual assistance for a group to carry out terrorist acts and so should not be criminalized. It is likely that this ruling will be appealed.

There also is an ongoing lawsuit brought in a federal court in Michigan by the ACLU and other groups, to declare Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act unconstitutional. The Administration is vigorously opposing that lawsuit. There has been no decision yet by the federal court there.

The US Supreme Court has not yet taken a case that would involve whether the USA PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional. The anti terrorism cases it has taken so far involve whether a United States citizen can be held indefinitely and without charge as an "enemy combatant" and whether federal courts have jurisdiction to consider claims of unlawful detention by detainees at the Camp Delta at Guantanano Bay.

Without a doubt, the PATRIOT Act will be an ongoing subject of political and social attention. Hopefully, whether it should have been passed in the first place will be part of the debate over the direction of the "war on terrorism" in the 2004 election.

C. William Michaels is an attorney in Baltimore, Maryland and the author of "No Greater Threat: America After September 11 and the Rise of a National Security State" (Algora, 2002). "No Greater Threat" is the only book containing a review of the entire USA PATRIOT Act. For more information on the book and author, contact www.nogreaterthreat.com.