For other versions of this document, see http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS-RL31200 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Order Code RL31200 CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web Terrorism: Section by Section Analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act Updated December 10, 2001 Charles Doyle Senior Specialist American Law Division Congressional Research Service ~ The Library of Congress Terrorism: Section by Section Analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act Summary The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, P. L. 107-56, is part of the Congressional response to September 11. It is the merger of two similar bills. S.1510 passed the Senate on October 11, 147 Cong.Rec. S10604, and H.R.2975 passed the House on October 12 after substituting the language of H.R.3108 for its text, 147 Cong.Rec. H6775. Having informally resolved their differences, the House enacted the measure in final form on October 24, 147 Cong.Rec. H7282, and the Senate on October 25, 147 Cong.Rec. S11059. The Act consists of ten titles which, among other things: · give federal law enforcement and intelligence officers greater authority (at least temporarily) to gather and share evidence particularly with respect to wire and electronic communications; · amend federal money laundering laws, particularly those involving overseas financial activities; · create new federal crimes, increase the penalties for existing federal crimes, and adjust existing federal criminal procedure, particularly with respect to acts of terrorism; · modify immigration law, increasing the ability of federal authorities to prevent foreign terrorists from entering the U.S., to detain foreign terrorist suspects, to deport foreign terrorists, and to mitigate the adverse immigration consequences for the foreign victims of September 11; and · authorize appropriations to enhance the capacity of immigration, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies to more effectively respond to the threats of terrorism. Several proposals, offered while the Act was under consideration, were not among the provisions ultimately enacted, e.g., revision of the McDade-Murtha Amendment (relating to the application of professional conduct standards to federal prosecutors), measures to combat illegal Internet gambling, and are thus beyond the scope of this report. Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Title I ­ Enhancing Domestic Security Against Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Title II ­ Enhanced Surveillance Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Title III ­ International Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act of 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Subtitle A­International Counter Money Laundering and Related Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Subtitle B­Bank Secrecy Act Amendments and Related Improvements . . 25 Subtitle C­Currency Crimes and Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Title IV ­ Protecting the Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Subtitle A ­ Protecting the Northern Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Subtitle B ­ Enhanced Immigration Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Subtitle C ­ Preservation of Immigration Benefits for Victims of Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Title V ­ Removing Obstacles to Investigating Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Title VI ­ Providing for Victims of Terrorism, Public Safety Officers, and Their Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Subtitle A ­ Aid to Families of Public Safety Officers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Subtitle B ­ Amendments to the Victims of Crime Act of 1984 . . . . . . . . 43 Title VII ­ Increased Information Sharing for Critical Infrastructure Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Title VIII ­ Strengthening the Criminal Laws Against Terrorism . . . . . . . 45 Title IX ­ Improved Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Title X ­ Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Terrorism: Section by Section Analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act Introduction The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act, Public Law 107-56, is part of the Congressional response to September 11. It is the merger of two similar bills. S.1510 passed the Senate on October 11, 147 Cong.Rec. S10604, and H.R.2975 passed the House on October 12 after substituting the language of H.R.3108 for its text, 147 Cong.Rec. H6775. Having informally resolving their differences, the House enacted the measure in final form on October 24, 147 Cong.Rec. H7282, and the Senate on October 25, 147 Cong.Rec. S11059. The report of the House Committee on the Judiciary, H.Rept. 107-236 on H.R.2975, and the report of the House Committee on Financial Services, H.Rept. 107-250 on H.R. 3004, each explain some of the issues ultimately resolved in the Act. This is a section by section analysis of the Act as enacted. The analysis borrows the explanations of the House Committee of the Judiciary, in a number of those instances where the language of the Committee bill and the language of the Act are identical. Section 1. Short Title and Table of Contents. The Act may be cited as the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001." Section 2. Construction; Severability. Section 2 confirms that the Act's provisions should be given maximum effect and that should any provision be found invalid or unenforceable it should be severed and the remainder the Act allowed to remain in effect. Title I ­ Enhancing Domestic Security Against Terrorism Section 101. Counterterrorism Fund. Congress created a Counterterrorism Fund to reimburse the Department of Justice for the costs of reestablishing operating capacity lost as a consequence of the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and for other CRS-2 counterterrorism expenditures, Public Law 104-19, 109 Stat. 249 (1995). This section takes a similar course in order to reimburse the Justice Department for the costs of (1) reestablishing the operating capacity of facilities damaged or destroyed by terrorists; (2) preventing, investigating and prosecuting terrorism by various means including the payment of rewards (without limitation); and (3) conducting terrorism threat assessments of federal facilities. The Fund is also available to reimburse federal agencies for costs associated with overseas detention of individuals accused of terrorism in violation of United States law. Section 102. Sense of Congress Condemning Discrimination Against Arab and Muslim Americans. It is the sense of Congress that the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, including Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Americans from South Asia, should be protected; that violence and discrimination against any American should be condemned; and that the patriotism of Americans from every ethnic, racial, and religious background should be acknowledged. Section 103. Increased Funding for the Technical Support Center at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This section authorizes appropriations of $200 million for each of fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004 for the FBI's Technical Support Center, created by section 811 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132, 110 Stat. 1314 (1996). Section 104. Requests for Military Assistance to Enforce Prohibition in Certain Emergencies. The Posse Comitatus Act and its administrative auxiliaries, 18 U.S.C. 1385, 10 U.S.C. 375, ban the use of the armed forces to execute civilian law, absent explicit statutory permission. Pre-existing statutory exceptions covered Department of Justice requests for technical assistance in connection with emergencies involving biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, 18 U.S.C. 2332e, 175a, 229E, 831(e), and 10 U.S.C. 382. This section amends section 2332e to include emergencies involving other weapons of mass destruction. Section 105. Expansion of National Electronic Crime Task Force Initiative. In order to counter various forms of electronic crime including those directed against the Nation's critical infrastructure and financial systems, this section instructs the Director of the United States Secret Service to establish a network of electronic crime task forces modeled after the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force. Section 106. Presidential Authority. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq., grants the President emergency economic powers when faced with extraordinary threats to our national security, foreign policy or economic well being. Under such conditions, for example, he may freeze the assets located in this country CRS-3 of a foreign nation or national responsible for the threat. During war time, the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) gives him the power to confiscate enemy property located in the United States , 50 U.S.C. App. 1 et seq. Section 106 amends section 703 of IEEPA, 50 U.S.C. 1702, to permit the President to confiscate foreign property in response to foreign aggression. The authority becomes available when the United States is engaged in armed hostilities or has been attacked by a foreign country or its nationals. At that time, the property of any foreign person, organization, or nation which planned, authorized, aided or engaged in the hostilities or attack becomes forfeitable. The President or his delegate may determine the particulars under which the property is confiscated, administered and disposed of, subject to an innocent owner defense created by section 316 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Elsewhere, the USA PATRIOT Act gives the President an alternative means to confiscate the same property on similar grounds (section 806). Section 106 is intriguing because on one hand it seems a logical extension of IEEPA and TWEA, but on the other it appears to revive the constitutionally suspect forfeiture of estate. Forfeiture of estate was a creature of the common law.1 Upon conviction and attainder, a felon or traitor forfeited all of his property. Statutory forfeiture, a more familiar feature of American law, consists of the confiscation of contraband, the fruits of crimes, and the means to commit a crime ­ untaxed whiskey, the drug dealer's profits, and the rum runner's ship. Three distinguishing features characterize forfeiture of estate. The property is lost solely by reason of its ownership by the felon or traitor; there need be no other nexus to the crime. As a consequence, it works the confiscation of all of a felon's property, not just his crime-related property. Third, it extinguishes his future right to hold property and no title to property may pass through him to his heirs.2 It is this last feature, this "corruption of the blood", which the authors of the Constitution found most distasteful. They decreed that "no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted," U.S.Const. Art. III, §3, cl.2. And when first assembled in Congress, they extended the ban to all federal crimes: "no conviction or judgment for any offences aforesaid, shall work corruption of blood, or any forfeiture of estate," 1 Stat. 117 (1790).3 1 "Three kinds of forfeiture were established in England at the time the Eighth Amendment was ratified in the United States: deodand, forfeiture, and statutory forfeiture. . . . Of England's three kinds of forfeiture, only the third took hold in the United States," Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 611-12 (1993). 2 Statutory forfeitures have often been accomplished through civil proceedings conducted in rem with the offending property treated as defendant. As a result, some came to believe that the necessity of the property owner's criminal conviction constituted the essential distinction between forfeiture of estate and statutory forfeiture. Yet, occasional forfeiture statutes have predicated confiscation upon the owner's conviction throughout our history. Moreover, it defies credibility to claim that forfeiture of estate's only ameliorating attribute is its only essential element. 3 The statutory ban, and its successors, remained in effect until 1984 when it was repealed (continued...) CRS-4 During the Civil War, Congress authorized the confiscation of the property of supporters of the Confederacy, 12 Stat. 589 (1862), but in deference to President Lincoln's constitutional doubts interest in the property reverted to the offender's heirs upon his death, 12 Stat. 627 (1862). On the other hand, confiscation under the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), looks for all intents and purposes like the confiscation of estate of the property of an enemy nation or national, 50 U.S.C. App. 5(b). Yet the Supreme Court has upheld TWEA as a valid exercise of the war power without mentioning of any obstacle interposed by constitutional reservations concerning forfeiture of estate, Silesian American Corp. v. Clark, 332 U.S. 469 (1947).4 Section 106 also amends IEEPA to cover situations where either the covered foreign person or the covered property are within this country or otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It allows the President to freeze assets during the pendency any International Emergency Economic Act investigation rather than await its outcome as was previously the case. Finally, it permits the government to present, in secret (ex parte and in camera), any classified information upon which an IEEPA decision has been based should the decision be subject to judicial review. Title II ­ Enhanced Surveillance Procedures Section 201. Authority to Intercept Wire, Oral, and Electronic Communications Relating to Terrorism. Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. 2510 et seq. establishes a judicially supervised procedure under which law enforcement authorities may intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications. The procedure, however, is only available in connection with the investigations of specifically designated serious crimes. Section 201 adds several terrorism offenses to Title III's list of designated offenses: ! chemical weapons offenses, 18 U.S.C. 229; ! use of weapons of mass destruction, 18 U.S.C. 2332a; ! violent acts of terrorism transcending national borders, 18 U.S.C. 2332b; ! financial transactions with countries which support terrorism, 18 U.S.C. 2332d; ! material support of terrorists, 18 U.S.C. 2339A; and 3 (...continued) through misunderstanding as part of comprehensive revision of federal criminal law, 18 U.S.C. 3563 (1982 ed.). 4 Cf., Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U.S. 197, 211 (1958)("this summary power to seize property which is believed to be enemy-owned is rescued from constitutional invalidity under the Due Process and Just Compensation Clauses of the Fifth Amendment only by those provisions of the Act which afford a non-enemy claimant a later judicial hearing as to the propriety of the seizure")(no suggestion that due process likewise condemns forfeiture of estate in cases that do not involve treason). CRS-5 ! material support of terrorist organizations, 18 U.S.C. 2339B. The section makes a technical correction in 18 U.S.C. 2516 by designating as 18 U.S.C. 2516(1)(r) one of the two paragraphs previously identified as 18 U.S.C. 2516(1)(p). Section 201 is subject to the sunset provisions of section 224. Section 202. Authority to Intercept Wire, Oral, and Electronic Communications Relating to Computer Fraud and Abuse Offenses. Section 202 adds computer fraud and abuse to the Title III predicate offense list. This section is subject to the sunset provisions of section 224. Section 203. Authority to Share Criminal Investigative Information. Previously, federal law enforcement officers who uncovered details of the activities of international terrorist organizations or of foreign agents in this country were often not free to pass the information on to federal intelligence officers. This section allows federal law enforcement officers to share a limited range of foreign intelligence information, notwithstanding earlier limitations such as those involving the use of grand jury information or Title III evidence. Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure prohibits disclosure of matters occurring before a federal grand jury. The Rule recognizes exceptions for disclosures in other judicial proceedings, to prevent abuse of the grand jury process, for presentation of evidence to other grand juries, and to state law enforcement officials. Section 203 creates an exception for intelligence matters. It covers information (1) related to the protection of the United States against a foreign attack or other foreign hostile action, against sabotage or international terrorism by a foreign power or its agents, or against foreign clandestine intelligence activities; (2) concerning a foreign power or territory related to the national defense, security, or foreign affairs activities of the United States; or (3) constituting foreign intelligence or counterintelligence as defined in section 3 of the National Security Act of 1947 (that is, (a) "information relating to the capabilities, intentions, or activities of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations, or foreign persons" or (b) "information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted by or on behalf of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations, or foreign persons," 50 U.S.C. 401a(2), (3)). Now when such information comes to light during the course of a federal grand jury investigation, it may be passed on to other Federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense, or national security officials, but only for use in the official duties. Within a reasonable time thereafter, Federal prosecutors must notify the court of the disclosure under seal. Prosecutors must also follow disclosure procedures outlined by the Attorney General when sharing intelligence information that identifies an American citizen or a permanent resident alien. CRS-6 When authorities executing a Title III interception order discover this same type of intelligence evidence, they may reveal it to any of these same officers for use in their official duties. Before the passage of section 203, such information could only be shared for law enforcement purposes, 18 U.S.C. 2517. As in the case of grand jury information, Title III intelligence information that identifies an American citizen or a permanent resident alien can be divulged only pursuant to disclosure procedures outlined by the Attorney General. Finally, section 203 creates a generic exception to any other law which purports to bar federal law enforcement officials from disclosing this type of intelligence information to these federal officers for official use. The section's amendments to Title III are subject to the sunset provisions of section 224, the grand jury and generic exceptions are not. Section 204. Clarification of Intelligence Exceptions From Limitations on Interception and Disclosure of Wire, Oral and Electronic Communications. Title III at one time stated that the interception of wire or oral communications for foreign intelligence purposes should be governed by the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) rather than those of Title III or of chapter 121 of title 18 of the United States Code (relating to stored wire and electronic communications and transactional records access) or of the Federal Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(f). Section 204 amends this instruction in 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(f) to confirm that in foreign intelligence investigations, FISA governs the interception of electronic communications and the use of pen registers and trap and trace devices as well. This section is subject to the sunset provisions of section 224. Section 205. Employment of Translators by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Existing law sometimes waives personnel requirements and limitations in order to fill positions requiring foreign language skills, e.g., 22 U.S.C. 1474(1)(relating to employment of translators with respect to United States Information and Educational Exchange Programs); 22 U.S.C. 4024(a)(4)(B) (relating to the employment of linguists in connection United States Foreign Service training). Section 205 waives otherwise applicable personnel requirements and limitations to permit the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to hire translators expeditiously to support counterintelligence investigations and operations. The Director of the FBI will see to the necessary security requirements. The Attorney General will report to the Committees on the Judiciary on the number of translators employed by the FBI and by the Department of Justice, on the impediments to using translators employed by other government agencies, on the FBI's needs, and on his recommendations to meet the FBI's needs for translation services. This section is not subject to the sunset provisions of section 224. CRS-7 Section 206. Roving Surveillance Authority Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. Speaking of identical language in an earlier bill, the House Committee on the Judiciary explained: "Section 1805(c)(2)(B) of title 50, permits the FISA court to order third parties, like common carriers, custodians, landlords and others, who are specified in the order, (specified persons) to provide assistance and information to law enforcement authorities in the installation of a wiretap or the collection of information related to a foreign intelligence investigation. "Section 152 amends 1805(c)(2)(B) to insert language that permits the FISA court to direct the order to