W
orking from the ashes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States implemented the Patriot Act just 45 days after the crisis, hoping the piece of legislation would help the government apprehend terrorists. However, a law implemented to protect the average citizen from terrorism ended up terrorizing the average citizen. The Patriot Act authorized the FBI to issue National Security Letters (NSLs) that allowed them to search through personal information, such as banking history or phone records without a warrant. A total of 192,499 NSLs were issued in the name of preventing terrorism, but the searches only led to one terrorist conviction alongside countless irreversible violations of privacy.