Conclusion - five questions.

why the term "patriot"? what work does that term do?

The term Patriot (apart from standing for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) was powerful wording after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  The country was looking at itself as well as those who supported/opposed us.  The reason many believe the Patriot Act passed so easily is because of the name.  After the worst attacks on our country, as people are buying American flags faster then they can be produced, who is going to oppose “The Patriot Act?”  The President used this to his advantage to pass an act that may not otherwise have had a chance due to the loss of civil liberties involved. 

Is the physical library a more surveilled space than the digital library?

This is an interesting question and one that does not have a distinct or concrete answer, because the government has been very vague about how it has been implementing the Patriot Act. We do know thanks to surveys conducted by the University of Illinois and activism by librarians throughout the country that surveillance of physical librarians has been of high priority for the FBI. Two nationwide surveys conducted by the University of Illinois researched how many libraries were searched by the FBI after the 9/11 attacks. The findings stated that out of 1,500 libraries that were apart of the survey only 200 of them had participated in an FBI investigation. When discussing the digital libraries it is much harder to pin point the exact amount of surveillance measures used by authorities. The lack of accountability that state and federal government officials have under the Patriot act allows their surveillance measures to often be secretive. Digital Libraries are relatively new, and privacy in this new technology is much harder to obtain then in print libraries. Transactions and searches are much easier to obtain in digital libraries then they are in print. Digital libraries hold records of online searches, membership files, user profiles, as well as, a list of Web sites visited by an individual. With digital libraries expanding and becoming increasingly used by citizens it is apparent that digital libraries will become a more surveilled space over physical libraries by law enforcement officials.

Are we concerned about "our" own (majority, mainstream, educated, middle-class, or White) rights, or the rights of the minority, the powerless, the unpopular, and the poor?

The rights that are being taken away are those of the minorities, powerless and poor in this country, yet the upper-middle class majority citizens are those who are fighting the Patriot Act. These people are fighting the act for the minorities and those who do not have power and do not have a chance to speak for themselves. Also, if the rights are being taken away from so many people already, the government could pass a new law taking away rights from the mainstream people in this country. The people that are fighting this law are fighting it for those who have already had their rights taken away and so that more people do not have their rights taken away as well. The government will probably never be so powerful that it can completely take the rights away from powerful citizens, but those fighting this law are making sure that if the government ever obtains that much power, their rights will still be intact.

Timeline of authorization and delivery of 9/11 commission report (three years) vs. timeline of assembly and passage of patriot act (three weeks)?

The uncharacteristic speed at which the Patriot Act was passed illustrates the government’s ability to craft radical change without deliberation, in times of crisis. In October 2001, the Patriot Act was passed by Congress with little dissent, under time pressure and with little rational discussion. The committee writing the Patriot Act began drafting it before the September 11th attacks but made changes to the act regarding issues of civil liberties during the middle of the night before it was presented to Congress. Congress members then voted on the act in the morning, leaving them not enough time to read the long document in its entirety. "The original Patriot Act is a case study in the perils of speed, herd instinct and lack of vigilance when it comes to legislating in times of crisis," said Sen. Robert Byrd. "The Congress was stampeded, and the values of freedom, justice and equality received a trampling in the headlong rush” (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0228-07.htm). Essentially, the Patriot Act was passed in an emotionally charged time without rational debate and deliberation regarding its contents and implications.

In contrast, the 9-11 Commission took over two years to be released. The 9-11 Commission is an independent, bipartisan commission that was created by President Bush in late 2002. It is formally called the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The commission’s purpose is to detail a complete account of the circumstances surrounding the 9-11 terrorist attacks and offer recommendations to guard against potential future terrorist attacks. The public report of the 9-11 Commission was not released until July 22, 2004, over two years after the initial request for the report was made.

The dramatic differences in the timelines of the Patriot Act and the 9-11 Commission should not be ignored. The legal response to the September 11 attacks, although in motion before them, was passed in only five weeks while an evaluation of the events surrounding the attacks took over two years to complete. Common sense and logic suggest that the evaluation should occur before legal changes are implemented. While it is up to each individual to formulate their own opinions regarding the Patriot Act, issues including the speed of its passing must be considered within the debate.

Metaphor of post-9/11 situation as one of "crime" vs. "war"?

The post 9/11 situation has been not only a war between the US and Al-Qaeda, but also a war of words, and this war started right after the 9/11 attack. News reports promptly followed the unprecedented terror. On the day of the terror, most news coverage framed it as an ‘attack.’ Notably, a few news reports began to frame the attack as ‘war.’

From September 12th on, almost all news media started framing the attack as ‘war.’

This change of framing was in accordance with George Bush’s framing-change. At 9:30 A.M. on the day of the attack, George Bush spoke to the public:    
Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the WorldTrade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country.
The next day (9/12, 10:53 A.M.), he again addressed the public: 
The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.
His televised address to the public was probably the crucial moment of prompting news media to frame the attack as war.
It is also notable that George Bush used the word ‘war’ instead of ‘crime.’ It is probably because ‘crime’ was not enough to describe the grave provocation, tantamount to a declaration of war. The Uniform Crime Report defines 35 kinds of crime – for example, arson, burglary, forgery, homicide, illegal gambling, and sexual assault – and terrorism is one of them (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm#cius). Thus, ‘terrorism’ is a more concrete and pinpointing word, which serves better than ‘crime’ to define the situation. And in reality, George Bush frequently used the word ‘terrorism,’ not crime, in talking about 9/11. However, another word was needed, more than terrorism, in order to push his agenda forward: war.

The following excerpt from a news conference held on September 12th symbolically shows why the attack must be framed as ‘war’:

Q) In terms of the President's statement this morning that this was an act of war, was it the realization that both the White House and Air Force One were targeted that elevated his language to talk about an act of war? Was it a threat against the head of this country that elevated it to that level?

MR. FLEISCHER: John, I think that the actions against the soil of the United States are what led the President to say that this was an act of war against the United States.

Q) But why not use the word "war" last night in his televised address to the nation? What changed overnight to ratchet up that rhetoric?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think that you are just going to continue to hear the President speak out on a regular basis, and the President will share his thoughts with you as his thoughts develop as a result of the conversations he has with the security team, and as he thinks this matter through in his mind, and shares information with the public.

Q) On the phrase "act of war," are you saying that is just a phrase describing what happened? Or does it carry any legal, or political, or constitutional significance?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think the American people know that when the United States is attacked in the manner it was attacked, this is an act of war. And I think there is no other way to describe it. And I think that's what the American people expect from their President, is a President who will talk with them straight and direct about it.

(From http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html)

Does it carry any legal, or political, or constitutional significance? It turned out that it carried real legal, political significance when the US government enforced the USA Patriot Act and invaded Iraq. Here, we should think twice. Did the framing change from attack to war lead the nation to enforcement of the USA Patriot Act and invasion of Iraq? Or did plans for a new surveillance law and invasion of Iraq necessitate the framing change? It seems that the latter is a more plausible assumption than the former. In short, defining the attack as ‘war’ was a preparation for the so-called ‘war on terror.’ This framing had the following logic: It is ‘you’ that started war, not us.