Since 9-11-01, the United States has made a lot of public efforts to fight terrorism. (I mean, apart from foreign wars.) We’ve tightened the borders, made it much harder to get into and out of the country, and – presumably – become much more vigilant in law enforcement. One might expect that all this would make some kinds of non-terrorist crimes harder to commit. Does anybody know if this has happened? For instance, is it now more difficult than it was to smuggle drugs in the U.S.? On the streets, have drugs become harder to find, or more expensive?
No doubt there are some provisions in the Patriot Act that clear the way for more intrusive investigative techniques into crimes such as drug trafficking. So part of the question is, is law enforcement abusing them in this way or have they diverted much of their budget-strained resources to fighting terrorism?
Would that actually be an “abuse” of the PATRIOT Act? Assuming such intrusions into personal freedoms and privacy are legitimate for the purpose of fighting terrorism (which I do not assume), why would they not be legitimate for the purpose of fighting other kinds of crime, which have been matters of public concern far longer than terrorism has been?
My understanding is, it has made it easier to investigate allegations of trafficking in child porn and easier to catch/prosecute sexual predators who connect via the internet.
(Now, should I save this message until I have cites, or post it now? Anybody want cites?)
I’ll take your word that it’s “made it easier,” but I’d want cites to show these new investigative powers have actually resulted in some convictions, or reduced the level of kiddie-porn traffic on the Internet.
Since the USA PATRIOT Act is being debated in Congress again, I thought it would be timely to revive this thread. We’ve been living in a heightened security climate for 3-1/2 years now. Has there been any drop in the crime rate attributable to it? Any falloff in cross-border drug smuggling? Anything? (Such might be used as an at least ancillary argument for not weakening any of the Act’s provisions.)
Well I haven’t heard about the Patriot Act actually reducing crime, but it has brought about an increase in wiretaps and “sneak and peek” searches. The act did help get Brandon Mayfield off the streets last year; too bad the arrest was baseless.
Maybe the act will prove more effective once the new intelligence czar fixes things and starts feeding law enforcement reliable information. 
I read that money transfers to finance terrorism were a prime target early on… and that this has increased cracking down on money laundering and illegal transfers. Investigation of illegal accounts too. That is the only non-terrorist crime I’ve heard about being affected by the Patriot Act.
Well, that’s pretty significant . . . an international business in trafficking drugs, prostitutes, or practically anything else can’t thrive unless there’s some way to launder the money, can it?
OTOH, I’d still be hesitant to assume any such businesses had actually been shut down by the money-laundering crackdown until I see some reliable stats.
Obviously, because obtaining premission to do X for purpose Y and then using the permission to do Z is an abuse (e.g. if the contractors who have permission to enter my property for the purpose of building a new master suite throw a beer party on my premeses, they’d be guilty of trespass and civilly liable, notwithstanding the fact that they had permission to be there for other purposes).