Section 213 Sneak and Peek Warrants: this provision allows sneak and peek search warrants, which grants authorities authorization to search a home or business without immediately notifying the target of a probe. Investigators still have to explain why they want to delay the search notification and must eventually notify the target about the search (Abramson and Godoy 2006). Under this provision the FBI is permitted to enter a home or an office in the absence of the occupant. During this secret investigation, FBI agents are authorized to take photographs, examine computer hard drives, and install a device known as the Magic Lantern. Once installed, the Magic Lantern, records all computer activity not just those transmitted over the internet. The United States Justice Department claims that this provision has already allowed investigators to search the houses of drug dealers and other criminals without providing advance notice that might have jeopardized the investigation (Paye 2006). Critics claim that investigators already had the power to conduct secret searches in counterterrorism and counterespionage probes. They claim that the USA PATRIOT Act authorized the use of this technique for any crime, no matter how minor. Civil Libertarians claim that sneak and peek searches should be narrowly limited to cases in which an investigation would be seriously jeopardized by immediate notice (Abramson and Godoy 2006).
Section 215 Access to Records: this provision allows investigators to obtain any tangible thing including books, records, papers, documents and other items sought in connection with a terrorist investigation. This is probably the most hotly debated provision of the law and has become known as the libraries provision. This section does not require any individualized suspicion to get a court order for any record wanted in an intelligence investigation. It allows the FBI, by means of a secret authorization from a court, to have access to any and all personal data without having to demonstrate that the inquiry has anything to do with terrorism or a foreign power. No one is allowed to reveal to another person that the FBI sought to obtain or has obtained tangible things under this section. The new version of this article makes it possible to challenge this stipulation and the Justice Department has agreed that the recipient of a Section 215 order can consult with an attorney after a waiting period of one year. However, the government has the right to override such a challenge for reasons of national security (Paye 2006).
Critics of the USA PATRIOT Act attack the breadth of the provision, saying that the law could be used to demand the reading records of library or bookstore patrons. The Department of Justice has denied that Article 215 has ever been used to obtain library records. However, civil libertarians point out that since 2001, federal agents have visited several libraries and in fact, have obtained records from 178 of them. The real number of these requests may be much higher since the USA PATRIOT Act makes illegal any disclosure on the part of the institutions concerned (Abramson and Godoy 2006).
One of the reasons Section 215 is so controversial is due to Article 505 National Security Letters. This clause expands the possibilities for the FBI or other governmental agencies to obtain a National Security Letter. The letter is a type of administrative subpoena granting access to medical and financial data, as well as data from travel agencies, casinos, automobile rental agencies, and library records. The Bush administration has steadfastly refused to include a standard in this article expressly allowing doctors, lawyers, and priests to challenge any effort by government agents to get privileged communications from patients, clients, or penitents. The FBI is able to obtain authorization for these records outside the context of any counter-espionage investigation. The USA PATRIOT Act has led to a marked increase in the FBIs use of National Security Letters, one hundred times the historic average. The FBI itself has admitted that National Security Letters allow the Bureau to collect information about citizens who are not suspected of any wrongdoing (Boykoff 2006). According to a report from the Justice Departments Inspector General in March 2007, the FBI has issued about thirty thousand letters per year and one hundred forty three thousand requests for information through National Security Letters from 2003 to 2005 alone. Additionally, the report found that the Bureau had often used the letters improperly and sometimes illegally (Liptak 2007).
Section 218 Foreign Intelligence Wiretaps and Searches: Criminal investigators have a high bar to reach when asking for permission to wiretap or search a suspects home. This provision lowers the bar for launching foreign intelligence wiretaps and searches in counterterrorism or counterespionage probes, where investigators must only prove that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power. This provision authorizes secret searches of a residence or business, without notification, if there is a reasonable presumption to believe that the residence or business contains information relative to the activity of an agent of a foreign power. The existence of any proof or indication of a crime is not required.
Prior to the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, federal agents and investigators had to certify that the primary objective of the search concerned obtaining intelligence in connection with the suspect foreigner (Paye 2006). This provision allows investigators to get a foreign intelligence wiretap or search order, even though they may end up bringing criminal charges against the suspect. The law now permits secret searches of anyones home, foreigner or United States citizen, on the mere suspicion that this individual is more or less linked to terrorism. Critics of the USA PATRIOT Act claim that investigators will too easily use spying and terrorism as an excuse to launch foreign intelligence and wiretap searches. Additionally, they point to the fact that the number of intelligence wiretaps now exceeds the number of criminal wiretaps. Civil libertarians claim that since these probes are conducted in secret, with little oversight, abuses could be difficult to uncover (Abramson and Godoy 2006).