4. Increased Surveillance
As grief quickly turned to anger about how intelligence failures had allowed known terrorists to enter the United States and execute the deadliest plot in American history, lawmakers were just as quick to introduce the controversial Patriot Act. Much like with Senator Joseph McCarthy’s investigation into communist subversion in America in the 1950s, suddenly there were Islamic terror cells in every city in America just waiting for their moment to strike.
In order to combat this new threat, The Patriot Act would transform the way domestic intelligence agencies like the FBI conducted surveillance. Congress allowed the FBI and NSA new abilities to collect and share data with long standing rules about “unreasonable search and seizure” of American citizens were all but thrown in the trash.
