"The poorest man may in his little house defy the full might of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it the storm may enter; the rain may enter, but the king of England cannot enter; all this force dare not cross the threshold of the ruined palace" (William Pitt the Elder). This idea of ​​freedom and security against the government was the foundation of the United States when it was founded in 1776. However, times have changed dramatically since then. More specifically, the terrible terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 left a devastated country panicking and seeking safety. To “combat the present danger” (George W. Bush) that our country was facing, a bill called the USA Patriot Act was drafted and quickly passed on October 25, 2001, less than forty-five days after the attacks. This bill allows for widespread surveillance, secret searches and seizures, and extreme privacy concerns. By vastly expanding government surveillance and investigative powers, the Patriot Act unconstitutionally poses an enormous threat to this nation's civil liberties. This US Patriot Act now grants law enforcement the power to broadly access the Internet searches, phone calls, text messages, and emails of American citizens. in counter-terrorism investigations and also in smaller, day-to-day criminal investigations. “There is evidence that the government has metadata of the phone records of every Verizon customer, and probably every American, going back seven years. This metadata is extremely revealing; investigators who mine it might be able to deduce whether we have a disease or addiction, what our religious affiliations and political activities are, and so on” (Granick, Sprigman). This level of mass investigation... middle of the paper... even though we are supposed to have the right to freedom of symbolic assembly and petition. It violates the Fifth Amendment because often, when a terrorist suspect is taken into custody, you don't get a grand jury to tell them whether there's enough evidence to go to trial. Over the past decade there have been many cases in which both American and immigrant suspects have been detained indefinitely with little or no evidence that they were connected to an act of terrorism. Since the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001, several lawsuits have been filed against it until federal courts ruled that a number of provisions were unconstitutional. Works Cited Granick, Sprigman. "The Criminal NSA" The New York Times. NP, June 27, 2013. Web. October 11, 2013. “How the U.S. Pariot Act Redefines Terrorism.” American Civil Liberties Union. Np, 6 December 2002. Web. 17 November. 2013.