This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, October 4, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown.

9-11 was 20 years ago, but this month we mark another sad milestone.

20 years since the passage of the Patriot Act, a breathtaking expansion of federal power

and law enforcement.

Chris Coyne is co-author of manufacturing militarism and tyranny comes home. We spoke about what 20 years of the Patriot Act

is given us. 9-11 was obviously a very tragic day. It re-jiggered a lot of how Americans both the political classes and just average Americans think about terrorism and

lost I think will ultimately be the fact that we're not marking the anniversary of the Patriot

Act as much as we probably ought to.

You write with Abigail Hall in Responsible State Craft 9-11 militarized law enforcement and made every American a suspect.

So let's get into some of the details of how that actually occurred.

The Patriot Act itself was a sort of a wish list of police

and surveillance authorities. What were, what are some of the most salient parts today of what was in that law?

Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me back, Caleb. It's always good to speak with you.

And you're certainly correct that in the wake of the 9-11

attacks we get what today is called the very broad and open-ended war on terror.

And a key part of that was Congress passing the USA Patriot Act.

And the purpose of the Act, which was not debated,

it went right to vote on the floor and you know one of the

pushbacks by a very small minority of representatives at the time was that there was no time for

them to read discuss debate the content of the bill. But the very purpose of it was to expand the

surveillance capabilities of the US government. And there's, you know, it's a very dense bill but just to highlight a

...