Summary of S. 1389: USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005
On Thursday, July 21, 2005, the Senate Select Committee on the Judiciary unanimously approved its amended bill to reauthorize the 16 sections of the USA PATRIOT Act subject to sunset at the end of 2005. The bill is expected to be put before the full Senate for a vote in September 2005.
It contains some improvements over House bill 3199. For example, it places new sunsets of four years on Section 206, Section 215, and the "Lone Wolf" provision from the 9/11 Recommendations Implementations Act. Nevertheless, it falls short in several ways.
Here is a section by section summary:
Section 206: Roving Surveillance Authority Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Adds a new requirement that a user of this authority inform a judge within 10 days (versus 15 days in the House bill) each time the roving surveillance is "directed at a new facility or place" and the justification for the surveillances. However, it contains no means for the government to make sure the person whose conversations are being tapped are the target's.
Section 213: Authority for Delaying Notice of the Execution of a Warrant. Sets 7 days as the limit for giving notice, but extends this limit indefinitely to "later date certain if the facts of the case justify a longer period of delay."
Section 215: The Senate draft bill raises the standard for seeking records from "certification" to a "statement of facts." Furthermore, it requires that the FBI Director approve FISA requests for library, bookstore, firearms, or medical records, and provides the right to challenge a gag order. However, the ability to challenge a request in both the House and Senate bills is weakened by the inability of the plaintiff or the plaintiff's attorney to do more than file a challenge. They may not address the court, for example.
Section 505, National Security Letters. Although this bill gives the entity being asked to turn over customer records an opportunity to challenge the request in court, for example, on the grounds that it violates the entity's constitutional rights, it does not provide a mechanism for considering the constitutional rights (such as the Fourth Amendment rights of someone whose emails are intercepted). Furthermore, unlike the Senate's proposed amendment to Section 215, the amendment to this section contains no mechanism for making sure that the records sought have a connection to a terrorist or spy.