What was a criticism of the usa patriot act when it was first enacted?

It went too far in allowing the government to gather intelligence on private conversations of US citizens.

Since the Act went into effect, there has been a lot of controversy over how much leeway the government is given when it comes to wiretaps and quite a few cases where regular citizens that had nothing to do with whatever crime was being investigated have been caught up in surveillance efforts. Today, you can even point to the recent scandal regarding the revelations made about the NSA.as a result of the expanded powers given to such agencies because of the Act and the changes to the law it created.

They made a checks and balance system to equal power within the branches. the "check" meant that one branch would watch one branch and "balance" them if they were too powerful. if you want more info on this, i would just google checks and balance system.