Naming the Patriot Act:

One argument I occasionally hear from opponents of the Patriot Act is that the Patriot Act was unfairly named. “With a name like Patriot Act,” the arguments runs, “How could anyone vote against it? No one wanted to be seen as unpatriotic in the weeks after 9/11.” The suggestion seems to be that the Patriot Act’s name, or at least the acronym its name creates, unfairly pressured legislators to vote for it.

   There are two significant problems with this argument. The first is that the name was worked out fairly late in the Congressional negotiations over the bill, long after it was clear that the bill would pass. The second problem is that most bills proposed in Congress have a similar feel-good name. The name of a bill is often used to articulate an argument in favor of the bill, not to describe its contents accurately. For example, if someone wants to pass a tax break, the bill might be named the “Empowering the People to Make America Great Act.” If someone else wants to do the exact opposite and undo tax breaks, the bill might be named the “Freeing Our Children From The Burdens Of the National Debt Act.”

  If you doubt this, go over to Congress’s Thomas site and check out the names of some recent bills. I did this a week or two ago; I entered a query using the keyword “law” to keep it as generic as possible. (I don’t know how the site chooses to order the bills, but I don’t think it matters.) Here are the names of the proposed statutes that popped up first on the list:

(1) State and Local Law Enforcement Discipline, Accountability, and Due Process Act of 2003
(2) Preservation of Federalism in Banking Act
(3) UNITE Act
(4) Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act
(5) JTTF Enhancement Act
(6) Federal Law Enforcement Pay and Benefits Parity Act
(7) End Racial Profiling Act
(8) Handgun Licensing Act
(9) Officer Dale Claxton Bulletproof Police Protective Equipment Act
(10) Equity in Law Enforcement Act

  If politicians felt forced to vote in favor of bills because of their names, then most bills would just have to become law. After all, how can you be against discipline, accountability, and due process? How can you be against safety? How can you be against uniting? How can you be in favor of inequity in law enforcement?

   Of course, I recognize that many politicians felt tremendous pressure to enact some kind of anti-terrorism law in the weeks following 9/11. But that pressure had nothing to do with name of the bill.