U.S.A. Patriot Act Improvement Reauthorization

The USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, H.R. 3199, as reported by the Conference Committee, H.Rept. 109-333 (2005), consists of seven titles. Among other things, Title I makes permanent 14 USA PATRIOT Act sections scheduled to expire on March 10, 2006, as well as the terrorism support amendments scheduled to expire on December 31, 2006. It amends and postpones until December 31, 2009 the expiration of the act's sections 206 and 215 relating to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders for roving wiretaps and access to business records. It extends the temporary FISA "lone wolf" provision to the same date. It clarifies and amends the "National Security Letter" statutes in a manner designed to ensure their constitutional viability and for other purposes. It authorises court orders approving wiretapping in the course of investigations of a number of terrorism-related offences. As for other proposals reported out of conference, Title II revives the death penalty as a sentencing option for air piracy murders committed between 1974 and 1994, permits certain terrorists to be sentenced to a lifetime of supervision following their release from prison, and eliminates the redundant capital punishment procedures found in the Controlled Substances Act. It does not include the other capital punishment adjustments found in the bill which the House sent to conference. Title III carries forward the anti-terrorism, anti-crime proposals found in a separate free-standing seaport protection bill. Title IV reflects in modified form House and Senate suggestions for amending federal confiscation laws and other money laundering adjustments. Titles V and VI of the Conference bill contain provisions added in conference and not previously included in either House or Senate version of H.R. 3199, some of which -- like the habeas amendments in the case of state death row inmates, the adjustments in the role of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review in the FISA process, or the new Secret Service offences -- may prove controversial. Title VII, likewise inserted by the conferees, follows the course of separate bills considered in the House and Senate that seek to curtail illicit methamphetamine production and its consequences through grant programs, enhanced criminal penalties, and preventing the diversion of over-the-counter cold remedies and other sources of precursor chemicals for use in illegal manufacturing.