The Patriot Act was when I realized you can't judge a bill by its name.
Just like the "HEROES Act" which funnelled trillions into the hands of corporations and foreign nations while giving chump change to Americans.
It was fascism wrapped in a big ol' American flag so any critics could be attacked as shitting on the graves of heroes and victims, with a side dish of "endangering America" and "not giving us the tools we need so you're to blame if it happens again."
The hijackers weren't caught was because Bush ignored six briefings about Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and suspicious activity. Not because of lacking intelligence. Bush was outright told that terrorists were in-country, planning to use airplanes for an attack along with explosives. Bin Laden's aides told a reporter they were planning an attack. The CIA knew there was group in the country. Bin Laden was under pressure; he was largely seen as a failure militarily and was trying to remain relevant as attention shifted to Chechnya.
The intelligence community was so concerned they titled one of the last of the briefings "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US" hoping that would get his attention. It didn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_befo...
People think his "oh shit" face the morning of 9/11 was because of some horror at the scale of the attack or something. Nah. He realized he was in deep, deep shit because he'd been warned, repeatedly, about Bin Laden planning an attack.
Reportedly Bin Laden was shocked at the scale of American response, but I think he didn't realize that Bush was willing to do anything to stay in for a second term (and how many dollar signs Cheney saw.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/us/august-01-brief-is-sai...
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-ho...
https://www.businessinsider.com/new-report-shows-how-many-wa...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-director...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/04/while-bush-vacat...
The fallout of the Patriot Act cannot be understated. One of many effects: dramatically reduced access to the US banking system for people who lack the right sort of identification, for whatever reason. Real ID bullshit is doing similar, making it much more difficult to secure government-issued ID, solving a problem that by and large doesn't exist.