"The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation… may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." — USA PATRIOT Act, Section 215, October 26, 2001
Civil-liberties groups compared the Patriot Act's surveillance expansion most often to which earlier wartime measure?
- Acheck_circle
The internment of Japanese Americans authorized by Executive Order 9066 in 1942
- B
The Pullman strike injunction of 1894
- C
The Espionage Act prosecutions of Eugene Debs in 1918
- D
The Smith Act prosecutions of communists in the 1950s
Explanation
Critics, including the ACLU and Japanese-American advocacy groups, drew analogies to Executive Order 9066 to argue that fear-driven security policy had again eroded constitutional protections, especially for Muslim and Arab Americans.