New at Reason: Julian Sanchez on the PATRIOT Act's "Lone Wolf" Provision

October 5, 2009

The "lone wolf" provision of the USA PATRIOT ACT authorizes spying within the United States on any "non–U.S. person" who "engages in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefor," and allows the statute's definition of an "agent of a foreign power" to apply to suspects who aren't such agents. And as Contributing Editor Julian Sanchez writes, as with so many of the post-9/11 intelligence reforms, the lone wolf provision has its genesis in the misguided assumption that every intelligence failure is evidence that investigators need more power.

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