USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005: A Legal Analysis
Abstract
By operation of section 224 of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) of 2001, several of the USA PATRIOT Act's amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) concerning law enforcement and intelligence investigative tools, were originally scheduled to expire on December 31, 2005. Section 6001(a) of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004 (concerning lone wolf terrorists) was also scheduled to sunset on that date. Without any legislative action, these provisions as well as amendments to them would have ceased to exist after the sunset date, and most of the pre-existing provisions of law would have been revived automatically. During the 109th Congress, the House and Senate each passed USA PATRIOT Reauthorization Acts, H.R. 3199 and S. 1389 respectively,5 which made permanent 14 of the 16 expiring USA PATRIOT Act sections and extended the sunset on section 206 (regarding FISA court orders for multipoint, or roving, wiretaps) and section 215 (access to business records requested under FISA), as well as the sunset on section 6001(a) of IRTPA. The two bills differed in several respects, including the new sunset date (under S. 1389, December 31, 2009, while H.R. 3199 offered a ten-year extension to December 31, 2015).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 21, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA467276
Entities
People
- Brian T. Yeh
- Charles Doyle
Organizations
- Library of Congress