Research Journal 9: Finding Information on the Open Web

Yahoo Search:
1.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.com

Minow, Mary. "The USA PATRIOT Act." Library Journal. (2002): n. page. Web. 8 Mar. 2013. http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/ljinprintcurrentissue/878423-403/the_usa_patriot_act.html.csp.

Purpose: The Library Journal  is in it's 133rd year of publication and it is the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field. The author of this article was a public librarian for over 10 years and is currently the President of the California Association of Library Trustees and Commissioners.

Coverage: My focus is less to do with how the Patriot Act affects libraries however, it is still related to the privacy rights  and so I would include information from this article to ensure my research is well rounded.

2.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.gov

Gottfried, David. "Legal Digest: Important Investigative Tools for Joint Terrorism Task Force Officers." The FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. Web. 8 Mar 2013. http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/2013/january/legal-digest-important-investigative-tools-for-joint-terrorism-task-force-offcers-part-2.

Authority: Not to say that the FBI may not post accurate information, but because they are a government agency they are under a lot of scrutiny. It is probably somewhat bias, but I couldn't find a .gov website related to my topic that wasn't probably somewhat biased.

Sources: This article references many sources in it's end notes. Many of the sources are references to specific United States Codes (laws), there are also references to court cases and their decisions.

3.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.org

Wikipedia contributors, . "Patriot Act." . Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 01 Mar 2013. Web. 08 Mar 2013.

Evenness: This article is mostly unbiased. The contributors for this topic equally covered the two main sides of this topic.

Coverage: The information presented in this article matches very closely with other sources I have been looking at. It also presents the information in a way that makes it easier to comprehend and digest.

4.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.edu

"The USA PATRIOT Act." Department of Government & Justice Studies: Appalachian State University. Department of Government & Justice Studies: Appalachian State University, n.d. Web. 8 Mar 2013.

Sources: This article list more than 50 sources used to write it. Just by scanning those resources and by clicking on a random selection of them, I think that this is a credible article containing statistics data that is back with facts.

Evenness: The author or authors did a very thorough job of including the two main sides of this issue. They have quotes and statistics that represent both people and agencies that support the Patriot Act and those who are against the Patriot Act, or at least parts of it.


To get the text of the Patriot Act the ".gov" websites were best and most likely to be accurate. However the ".gov" websites tend to lean towards supporting the Patriot Act rather than presenting both sides of the issue. I had to look through a lot of ".edu" articles to find one that I trusted based on the A.S.P.E.C.T. method. Many ".edu" articles or websites didn't have source information and I still ended up choosing an article that did not list an author. I can only assume that it was written by a single person for the college website or was a compilation of information from many authors. The ".com" article that I found did not meet my overall needs for information exactly, however, I trusted the source based on many factors referenced in the A.S.P.E.C.T. method. There were several sections of the article that would be useful to touch on in my research.