The purpose of this project is to explore the symbolic meaning of ''patriot'' by bracketing the way in which it is negotiated during the policymaking process utilized to authorize, oversight, and reauthorize the Patriot Act. Narrowing the purpose a bit further, I should specify that what I am looking for is the way in which participants in the deliberative process describe their own credibility as patriots, the credibility of other participants in the debate, the credibility of people outside the debate who have a bearing on the way in which the war on terror is engaged, and the way in which this discussion about patriotism speaks to the credibility of the deliberative process itself. In other words, to use Aristotelian terms, I am viewing the debate over patriotism as primarily a matter of ethos---as distinguished from logos (e.g. legal extrapolation of the law) and pathos (e.g. appeals to fear, anger, or sadness). This is not to say that appeals to ethos, logos and pathos can necessarily be separate from each other. In fact, it is nearly impossible to discuss the presence of ethos without also considering logos and pathos, but from my vantage point, I hone descriptive efforts toward the way in which all the various appeals converge to frame the meaning of what it means to be credible as a ''patriot.''