On 26 october 2001, president george w. bush signed the so-called USA PATRIOT Act—the title is actually an acronym standing for "Uniting and Strengthening of America by Providing Appropriate Tools to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"—thereby initiating what has been called "the most sweeping revocation of constitutional rights [and] civil liberties in the history of the United States."1 Usually referred to simply as "the Patriot Act," [End Page 1] the new law has been subjected to a range of substantive and often bitter critiques, most of them centering on the premise that, while it offers little by way of securing the country against the ravages of genuine terrorism, it provides a veritable carte blanche to domestic elites avid to preserve their own positions of power and privilege through the placement of arbitrary and generally severe constraints upon the range of activities/expression allowed dissident or "unruly" sectors of the body politic.2
Also, listen to the interview re: From the Pinkertons to the Patriot Act
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