Now that those repressive government policies have been bolstered by the USA PATRIOT ACT, the threat here at home from our own government is very frightening. It raises complex questions about the point at which we would be willing to give up liberties for others and ourselves in the face of threats such as smallpo

d. Dramatic increases to the scope and penalties of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This includes raising the maximum penalty for violations to 10 years (from 5) for a first offense and 20 years (from 10) for a second offense. Also, it is ensuring that violators only need to intend to cause damage generally, not intend to cause damage or other specified harm over the $5,000 statutory damage threshold. It also allows aggregation of damages to different computers over a year to reach the $5,000 threshold. Next, it enhances punishment for violations involving any damage to a government computer involved in criminal justice or the military. This also includes damage to foreign computers involved in US interstate commerce and includes state law offenses as priors for sentencing.

1. Expanded surveillance with reduced checks and balances. USAPA expands all four traditional tools of surveillance -- wiretaps, search warrants, pen/trap orders and subpoenas. Their counterparts under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allow spying in the U.S. by foreign intelligence agencies have similarly been expanded. This means the government may now spy on web surfing of innocent Americans, including terms entered into search engines, by merely telling a judge anywhere in the U.S. that the spying could lead to information that is "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. The person spied on does not have to be the target of the investigation. This application must be granted and the government is not obligated to report to the court or tell the person spied up what it has done. Also, the government may utilize nationwide roving wiretaps. FBI and CIA can now go from phone to phone or computer to computer without demonstrating that each is even being used by a suspect or target of an order. The government may now serve a single wiretap, FISA wiretap or pen/trap order on any person or entity nationwide, regardless of whether that person or entity is named in the order. The government need not make any showing to a court that the particular information or communication to be acquired is relevant to a criminal investigation. In the pen/trap or FISA situations, they do not even have to report where they served the order or what information they received. The EFF believes that the opportunities for abuse of these broad new powers are immense. For pen/trap orders, ISPs or others who are not named in the do have authority under the law to request certification from the Attorney General's office that the order applies to them, but they do not have the authority to request such confirmation from a court. Next, the Patriot Act requires ISPs to hand over more user information. The law makes two changes to increase how much information the government may obtain about users from their ISPs or others that handle or store their online communications. First it allows ISPs to voluntarily hand over all "non-content" information to law enforcement with no need for any court order or subpoena. Second, it expands the records that the government may seek with a simple subpoena to include records of session times and durations, temporarily assigned network (I.P.) addresses; means and source of payments, including credit card

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2192
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)