USA PATRIOT Act

Congress passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, known as the USA PATRIOT Act, with little debate, 357 to 66 in the House and 98 to 1 in the Senate, and President George W. Bush signed it on October 26, 2001. It lowered the wall between intelligence and criminal investigators, allowed roving wiretaps that follow a target across devices, authorized delayed notice of some searches, expanded national security letters and the FISA business records provision known as Section 215, and strengthened money laundering and terrorism financing laws.

Sixteen provisions were set to expire, and a 2006 reauthorization made most of them permanent. In June 2013 documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed that the NSA had used Section 215 since 2006, under secret FISA Court orders, to collect records of nearly all Americans' phone calls. A federal appeals court held in May 2015 that the program exceeded the law, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board found it had not made a concrete difference in stopping any attack on the United States. The USA FREEDOM Act of June 2, 2015, ended bulk collection, and Section 215, roving wiretaps, and the lone wolf provision expired on March 15, 2020, when Congress did not renew them.

Supporters say the law closed gaps exposed by the attacks, especially in sharing information between the FBI and intelligence agencies, and that many of its tools, such as roving wiretaps, already existed for criminal cases. Critics on the left and right say it was passed in haste, expanded secret surveillance of Americans, and was interpreted far beyond what Congress intended. Its legacy shapes every renewal fight over surveillance authorities, including the 2026 lapse of Section 702.