Question

how did the patriot act passed by Congress affect the privacy of American Citizens?

Answer 1

"The Patriot Act increases the government's surveillance powers in four areas:

Records searches. It expands the government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by third parties. (Section 215)

Secret searches. It expands the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)

Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).

"Trap and trace" searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects "addressing" information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214). "
credit // https://www.aclu.org/surveillance-under-usa-patriot-act