Duke Law School

Civil Liberties Online

Institutional Capacity: Enhancing the Government?s Institutional Capacity to Address Terrorist Activity

The USA PATRIOT Act enhances the government’s institutional capacity to respond to and address terrorist activity.  It pursues several paths in its attempts to do so including supplementing funding of existing agencies, creating new agencies, or merely evaluating the need for further changes.  Additionally, the Act enhances institutional capacity by encouraging coordination and data sharing among agencies. The majority of these provisions have not raised much controversy.