USA PATRIOT Act

The USA PATRIOT Act is a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It expanded the surveillance and investigative powers of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies and eased interagency communication for counterterrorism purposes; the bill passed the House 357 to 66 and the Senate 98 to 1. Several provisions carried sunset clauses; after extensions in 2006 and 2011 and modification by the USA Freedom Act of 2015, key surveillance provisions were allowed to expire in 2020 when the House did not pass a further extension, and federal courts have ruled a number of the act's provisions unconstitutional. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/