The Threat Unity Poses

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, partisan differences were swept away as Congress worked together to fight the new terrorist threat. As they stood together and sang "God Bless America," they represented a spirit of new partisan cooperation. Issues like privacy rights, due process, and free speech just didn't matter anymore. We were a new nation--a nation of unity, where we would not smile on disagreement. A nation of patriotism, where we would not smile on criticism of the government. Most of all, we were a nation in fear. Fortunately, it didn't last long.

• Read more: The Spirit of 9/11

Enter the PATRIOT Act

On October 26th, 2001, President Bush signed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001. The Senate passed the bill by a chilling 98-1 margin, with only Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) dissenting; the House passed the bill 357-66. Many representatives had never even read the bill, much less debated it. Civil libertarians were concerned that the bill threatened many of our most basic rights, but such details were not on the minds of our elected officials or most voters. We were all concerned about one thing: The deadly new terrorist threat.

• Read more: Who's Afraid of the PATRIOT Act?
• Read more: Libraries Under the PATRIOT Act
• Read more: Financial Institutions Under the PATRIOT Act

America Wakes Up

By the time the PATRIOT Act came up for reauthorization in 2005, our country had recovered. Legislators refused to reauthorize the bill sight unseen, and demanded changes to protect individual civil liberties. Many of those changes were accommodated, and the ACLU is pursuing the rest in court.

We're very fortunate to have this outcome. Most nations that become dictatorships do so when their very existence is threatened, when those responsible for safeguarding civil liberties stay quiet for the sake of unity, when the population is united in fear. The PATRIOT Act is not without its problems, but it is, for the most part, a reasonable piece of legislation. If a far more destructive bill had been proposed and aggressively promoted as the only means to fight terrorism, how certain can we be that our elected officials would not have been just as eager to join together and approve it in a spirit of post-partisan unity?

• Read more: The Reauthorized PATRIOT Act
• Read more: The PATRIOT Act: Where It Stands Now (ACLU)