PATRIOT Act: Implications for Colleges and Universities
Edward T. Chapman · 2015
Quickly passed after the September 11 attacks, the PATRIOT Act has been supplemented with other acts in the past 3 yrs. Universities and schools must know the requirements and implications of these acts to ensure that their campus-wide information technology policies appropriately satisfy the requirements of the new anti-terrorism laws. Meet-ing these new security requirements demands information technology capabilities not normally implemented on university campuses. A university may need to implement a “pen register ” to record all the routing information related to a specifi c student for up to 6 months. Care must be taken not to reveal more than the law allows. University computer policies and practice must be evaluated for conformity to current law. These new security and reporting requirements add to the Information Technology department’s workload and mandate new capabilities for university IT departments. To address the new chal-lenges, university IT departments must train or hire staff as well as allocate appropriate resources. © 2005 Proceedings of the Oklahoma Acad e my of Science