House Passes the USA PATRIOT Act

On this date, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, known by its acronym the USA PATRIOT Act, which vastly expanded the federal government’s surveillance powers. Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, lawmakers of the 107th Congress (2001–2003) worked to overhaul the country’s intelligence, immigration, and law enforcement agencies. Because the scope of the bill was so broad, House officials referred the legislation to numerous committees, including the Judiciary Committee which began its markup and debate on the bill in the fall of 2001. On October 15, however, staff working for Senate Majority Leader Thomas Andrew Daschle of South Dakota found powdered anthrax in a letter sent to his office. The House went into recess on October 17 as security officials tested the Capitol complex for the potentially deadly bacteria. As a safety precaution, the Judiciary Committee moved to a new location where it continued its work on the legislation. Tish Schwartz, chief clerk of the committee at the time, recalled Members and staff “crammed” into a new office with only one working computer. Left without their phones, fax machines, and internet access, they worked “on the floor, writing on yellow tablets,” Schwartz said, and were stuck “cutting, pasting, [and] taping,” together the draft of the bill to send to the Government Printing Office. “We went totally back to pre-technology days,” she remembered. When the House returned from recess on October 23, Judiciary Committee Chairman Frank James “Jim” Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin introduced the final version of the bill. The USA PATRIOT Act (H.R. 3162) allowed officials to expand electronic surveillance of phones and emails, delay notification of search warrants, access business records, and detain immigrants without a hearing. The next day, the House approved the bill, 357 to 66. The Senate passed it the following day, 98 to 1, before President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 26, 2001.