The PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement to discriminate based on race.
Mariano-Forentino Cuellar, Asistant Professor at Stanford Law School, 2003 (Spring, Harvard Latino Law Review, 6 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 9, p.L/N)
Yet this injury is small in comparison to those experienced by people subjected to detention, searches, and surveillance under the USA Patriot Act. The Act permits individuals to be targeted, in part, because of race and subjected to a government search of their homes with little judicial [*37] supervision. n107 Moreover, the government can now legally choose never to notify her of that search. n108 The government also has the option of designating U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, thereby depriving them of protections normally enforced through judicial review. n109 Further, those held outside of the United States lack recourse to the writ of habeas corpus. n110 Finally, new investigative strategies will realistically not be limited to the most dangerous potential terrorists (even if we could agree on who they are) if part of their justification is that they help determine who fits into that category. As long as there is some legal reason for using an investigative strategy, such as traffic enforcement, then police can justify their decision regardless of what actually triggered the use of the investigative technique. n111 For example, invasive tactics such as roving wiretaps, searches without ex post notification, or other procedures permitted by post--September 11 legislation are justified on the basis of fighting the war on terror--an objective that seems compelling to the public. Regardless of the justification, the impact of this discretion on profiling should be considered in the context of all non-terrorism related enforcement. This renders troubling the discretion-enabling provisions of the USA Patriot Act, since few checks exist that force investigators to explain their actions. n112 This is not to say that the government has invidious motives in tapping phones, infiltrating computers, secretly searching homes, or labeling people as enemy combatants. Legislators may choose to give prosecutors and investigators discretion for reasons that have nothing to do with discrimination. In practice, however, discretion may be discrimination's handmaiden, giving authorities the opportunity to make arbitrary decisions in the name of fighting terrorism.
Its a slippery slope: Because the War on Terror will continue indefinitely, the incursions on civil liberties in the Patriot Act will spill over to worse rights violations.
George Harris, Professor of Law at the University of Utah College of Law, 2003 (Spring, Cornell International Law Journal, 36 Cornell Int'l L.J. 135, p.L/N)
As Chief Justice Rehnquist has reminded us, "law is silent in time of war." n78 By transforming its anti-terrorism policy from the "criminal model" urged by the authors to a "war model" not fully anticipated by the authors, the administration has played a powerful card against those who would use the courts to reign in its authority. Unlike the threat posed to our national security and consequently to our civil liberties in World Wars I and II, however, the current war on terrorism conjures the prospect of being at perpetual war and courts being perpetually silent in the face of executive actions in the name of prevention and national security. Ironically, to the degree that present policies fail to prevent future attacks, further incursions on civil liberties in the name of national security will undoubtedly gain momentum from the resulting national apprehension and fear. One shudders to imagine the impact on civil liberties of another attack of the magnitude of 9/11.
After 9/11, hundreds of Arabs were racially profiled and unjustly detained.
Linda Fisher, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School, 2004 (Winter, Arizona Law Review, 46 Ariz. L. Rev. 621, p.L/N)
Nor does it appear that religion or ethnicity can accurately serve as a proxy for involvement in terrorism. One need only cite the detention of over 700 Muslim men in New York and New Jersey - virtually all unconnected to terrorism - after September 11. n216 Other interrogations and arrests of Muslims across the country corroborate the point. n217 Because profiling based on these characteristics causes great harm and has not been demonstrated to provide effective indicators of criminality, another standard must be employed, as set forth in the next Section.
The Patriot Act dramatically increases racial profiling.
Lindsey Kendrick, J.D. Candidate at Howard University School of Law, 2004 (Spring, Howard Law Journal, 47 How. L.J. 989, p.L/N)
The [PATRIOT] Act, in its vagueness, has serious ramifications for racial profiling. Racial profiling is a tactic used by law enforcement officials that involves stopping and searching suspects, not based on any particular activity or conduct, but based on the race of the suspect. n74 In a report by the Maryland State Police, for example, Blacks constituted seventeen percent of all drivers on the road, yet comprised more than seventy percent of all drivers that were stopped and searched. n75
I guess maybe you're just defining civil liberties differently than I do if you believe that it has changed nothing along those lines.
Congress thinks is necesary and proper... 
