mitted it was "less than perfect."
             Many groups and experts had asked that lawmakers take time to fully study the implications of the series of proposals, partly out of concern they could get caught up in the strong national desire to act swiftly and strongly in the aftermath of the attacks.
             Brian Forst, a professor of justice, law and society at American University, said many of the provisions in the package would, indeed, give the government more powerful tools to fight terrorism. But the potential for misusing those tools should give lawmakers pause, he said. "On the one hand, you can see that it could do a lot to help, and on the other hand you can also see how it can be abused," said Forst. He noted the abuses of the McCarthy era, or the government's surveillance of civil rights leaders during the 1960s as lessons that should not be forgotten. "It all depends on how it's managed," he said. "We have reason to be concerned because of the problems there have been in the past." (CNN.com, 2001).
             While this new antiterrorism law was not intended to take away civil liberties of Americans, its unintended consequences threaten fundamental constitutional rights of people who have nothing to do with terrorism (Dean, 2001).
             According to an article by Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic, the bill doesn't empower the federal government to investigate genuine emergencies nearly enough, while in others it carelessly expands the definition of terrorism to cover low-level computer crimes. Rosen contends that the USA Act actually threatens privacy without increasing security. Two scenarios by Rosen provide illustration of the PATRIOT Act's flaws:
             Imagine this: FBI agents get an anonymous tip that a red van with biological weapons has just dumped anthrax in the Central Park reservoir. They'd like to search all the red vans in the area, but by law they can't. Once a crime has occurred, an anonymous tip can't create re...