Congressional+Activity

Original Legislation:
The original bill was passed first in the House of Representatives on October 24, 2001. In order to speed up the legislation process for the bill, the House decided to skip debate and jump to voting on the bill. This process would require a two-thirds vote, historically making this an action only taken on non-controversial bills. The bill was passed with 357 Ayes, 66 Nays, 9 Present/Not Voting successfully passing the bill from the House. The following day, the Senate voted on their form of the bill and was quickly passed with a 98 Aye to 1 Nay and 1 Not Voting. George Bush officially signed the bill on October 26th, 2001 and thus created the Public Law No: 107-56.

===Renewal and Changes=== In 2004 President Bush called Congress to discuss and renew the USA PATRIOT act of 2001 as the law's many sunset clauses would expire due December 3rd of 2005. While Congress did attempt to create an extension in 2004, no bill was actually passed until December of 2005. While the House of Representatives actually had a bill circulating through Congress in the summer of that year, it was not actually finalized and sent to the President until 2006. The Senate bill extended the effective term of the USA PATRIOT act to February 3rd of 2006. The extension also took the opportunity to amend the bill by rewriting the lone wolf clause. The new extension redefined what the lone wolf clause would have otherwise required as steps necessary for FISA to investigate certain foreign individuals. Now the bill "permitted issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) orders targeting terrorists without a showing that they are members of a terrorist group or agents of such a group or of any other foreign power." The House also fathered a bill through Congress in February to effectively extend the USA PATRIOT act again, however this time no amendments were added since the Senate extension bill from a year before. The new extension allowed for the USA PATRIOT act to be effective until March 10th of 2006.

Due to the urgency that the USA PATRIOT act required for its extensions, both the House and the Senate decided to introduce two different bills each. The first one they would rush through the system to extend the bill, and the second would then qualify and change specific verbiage in the original public law. The House's solution was the //USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.// The new bill worked on holding the executive branch and its agencies to be held with more liabilities and attempted to give Congress more information to exactly how the USA PATRIOT act was being used. The bill repealed most of the sunset clauses initiated in the first title, making these clauses permanent, but also required for the information regarding the terms of wiretapping to be presented to Congress no latter than ten days after the action was taken. However, Congress did allow for a loophole in their new changes. The language in Section 116 states that the bill "Prohibits disclosure of such a request if the Director of the FBI certifies that otherwise there may result a danger to U.S. national security, interference with a criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interference with diplomatic relations, or danger to the life or physical safety of any person." This effectively allows the FBI to choose not to disclose any information without a formal request or reasoning to how this information could be dangerous. However this statement would again be qualified with the changes in the Senate's //USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006//. The bill gives power to FISA to require that the Director of the FBI provide substantial evidence for reason to suspect an individual and initiating an investigation. However the FISA only requires evidence as minimal as a book or a message from the individual. While this bill attempts to provide Congress with more information about the usages of the USA PATRIOT act, it does not require the act to be all transparent, but rather has set the stage for Congress to debate just how much the FBI and the President can do without having to report back.

Congressional Activity Today:
Currently, Congress has sent a bill that would discuss and possibly extend the sunset clauses in the USA PATRIOT act. The bill was sent to a committee, who then found that the bill should be discussed on the floor of the Senate. Also, the Senate and the House of Representatives both have bills about renewing the USA PATRIOT act that is due in 2010. The House has sent the bill through a committee and has already reported it to the Speaker to be put on a calendar of business. However the Senate's version of the bill has not yet left committee and is subject to changes in verbiage before it is reported to the floor.