Book excerpt: Within six weeks of 9/11, in a nation gripped by fear and hatred, Congress overwhelmingly approved the USA PATRIOT Act, drafted in secret by the Department of Justice. There was almost no debate, and few in Congress were given more than a few hours to read the 342-page document. In America's Unpatriotic Acts, award-winning journalist and university professor Walter M. Brasch looks not just at the effects of the PATRIOT Act upon the nation, but also at the innumerable civil rights violations conducted in the United States, as well as by the United States in foreign countries during the three years following 9/11.