FBI Salt Lake City: Community

The Patriot Act removed legal barriers that made it difficult to share information between criminal investigations on the one hand and counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations on the other. For example, prior to the Patriot Act, in any investigation in which the FBI contemplated using wiretaps in terrorism and espionage investigations (pursuant to FISA), coordination between law enforcement and intelligence personnel was prohibited. That is no longer true. Moreover, the FBI can now better initiate or continue to employ such wiretaps while it also investigates using the criminal process.

The Patriot Act also modified the rules governing the handling of information obtained through a grand jury or wiretaps in criminal investigations, so that the FBI must now disclose, without delay, any foreign intelligence information obtained through these criminal investigative tools to the Director of Central Intelligence and Homeland Security officials. For the first time, working with their partners in law enforcement and the Intelligence Community, the FBI can now systematically look at information in the aggregate to uncover trends -- they can see all "the dots" and work together to connect them in order to predict and prevent terrorist attacks.

Before the Patriot Act, many of the investigative tools didn't account for new communications technologies like e-mail, voicemail, and cell phones, leaving loopholes that terrorists could exploit. The Patriot Act made some common sense changes to adapt existing authorities to new technologies. For example, before the Act, law enforcement could get court permission for a "roving wiretap" to track a drug dealer who switched from one cell phone to another, but could not get a similar authority to track terrorists. Now they can.

The so-called pen register/trap and trace statute allows the FBI to collect critical non-content information about a communication, such as the numbers dialed on a telephone. The Patriot Act updates this statute to account for Internet communications. These tools have helped the FBI track the communications of terrorist conspirators.

Patriot Act gives the FBI new tools to help track sources of terrorist financing

Terrorists often make use of informal systems to transfer funds in a manner that is difficult to trace. The Patriot Act makes it illegal to run an unlicenced foreign money transmittal business. The Patriot Act strengthened the existing ban on providing material support to terrorists and enhanced the FBI's authority to seize terrorists assets. These assets are then unavailable for funding terrorist activities.

Patriot Act allows for access to business records (including library records) in terrorism investigations with court approval

Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, Agents could obtain these types of records with a criminal search warrant. The Act simply makes these records accessible, with proper authorization, for foreign intelligence and terrorism investigations. The Act does not single out library records, it just treats them the same as any other records held by a business or organization. Federal grand juries have long had power to issue subpoenas for all types of businesses, including libraries, and they do not need judicial approval. It's tougher for law enforcement if they want library records to pursue a terrorism investigation-they need to get approval from a senior FBI official and from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court.

The Patriot Act does not give the FBI authority to investigate individual reading habits or other activities protected by the First Amendment. In fact, the Act contains explicit safeguards for traditional library activities protected by the First Amendment.

Patriot Act allows the FBI to delay notice of a search in very limited circumstances

Whenever the FBI executes a court-issued search warrant, they always provide notice to the person whose property is searched. However, in some cases it may be necessary to delay giving notice for short periods of time in order to protect life or avoid tipping off a terrorist suspect. Such situations should be rare, and proper planning is highly encouraged. The Patriot Act allows for a short delay in just such cases. It replaces a mix of inconsistent rules that varied widely across the country with a uniform statutory standard.

FBI uses available tools to prevent terrorism while protecting civil liberties