The US Congress passed the "Patriot Act" in October 2001 as a response to the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The USA Patriot Act allows law enforcement officers to conduct secret searches of your home or office, take pictures and seize items without telling you. It allows the government to do this without a hearing if the government says that you are engaged in or planning an act of "domestic terrorism." The Patriot Act expands the definition of terrorism to include groups that engage in certain types of civil disobedience. [Sections 213,411, 802, 806]

The Patriot Act permits the jailing for an indefinite time of immigrants and other non-citizens without the government having to show that they are, in fact, terrorists. [Section 412]

The Patriot Act requires judges to give rubber stamp approval for direct access by law enforcement to search any type of your personal records without probable cause for the search. Under threat of jail time, it prohibits the holders of this information, like libraries, banks, and hospitals from ever disclosing that they have produced these records. [Section 215]

The Patriot Act changes the nature of warrants for wiretaps by requiring judges to approve a wiretap without knowing who is to be tapped nor where it is to be placed. [Section 216]