The USA PATRIOT Act was a landmark Act of the United States Congress, signed into law by President George W. Bush. The formal name of the statute is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, and the commonly used short name is a contrived acronym that is embedded in the name set forth in the statute.
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children. The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. The program was passed into law as part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, and the statutory authority for CHIP is under title XXI of the Social Security Act.
Gregory Paul Walden is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Oregon's 2nd congressional district from 1999 to 2021. He is a Republican. Walden is the son of three-term Oregon State Representative Paul E. Walden. In October 2019, Walden announced that he would not run for reelection in 2020.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil.
In public policy, a sunset provision or sunset clause is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides for the law to cease to be effective after a specified date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend it. Unlike most laws that remain in force indefinitely unless they are amended or repealed, sunset provisions have a specified expiration date. Desuetude renders a law invalid after long non-use.
The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) is a United States federal law signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 26, 2002. The Act created a federal "backstop" for insurance claims related to acts of terrorism. The Act "provides for a transparent system of shared public and private compensation for insured losses resulting from acts of terrorism." The Act was originally set to expire December 31, 2005, was extended for two years in December 2005, and was extended again on December 26, 2007. The Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act expired on December 31, 2014.
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law signed by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The Act provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and the prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress when prosecutors chose not to prosecute cases. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the U.S. Department of Justice.
Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commercial broadcasters before carrying their programming.
Joseph Simon Donnelly Sr. is an American attorney, politician, and diplomat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2013 and as a U.S. Senator from 2013 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party from, he would later serve as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See from 2022 to 2024 under President Joe Biden.
The history of the USA PATRIOT Act involved many parties who opposed and supported the Patriot Act, which was proposed, enacted and signed into law 45 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The legislation, though approved by large majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, was controversial, and parts of the law were invalidated or modified by successful legal challenges over constitutional infringements to civil liberties. The Act had several sunset provisions, most reauthorized by the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act. Both reauthorizations incorporated amendments to the original USA PATRIOT Act, and other federal laws.
On December 19, 2006, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), Public Law No. 109-417, was signed into law by President George W. Bush. First introduced in the House by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), PAHPA had broad implications for the United States Department of Health and Human Services's (HHS) preparedness and response activities. Among other things, the act amended the Public Health Service Act to establish within the department a new Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR); provided new authorities for a number of programs, including the advanced development and acquisitions of medical countermeasures; and called for the establishment of a quadrennial National Health Security Strategy.
Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV and Dish Network, which have 21 and 10 million subscribers respectively.
The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 is a U.S. law to provide health monitoring and aid to the first responders, volunteers, and survivors of the September 11 attacks. It is named after James Zadroga, a New York Police Department officer whose death was linked to exposures from the World Trade Center disaster. The law funds and establishes a health program to provide medical treatment for responders and survivors who experienced or may experience health complications related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, also known as the 2010 Tax Relief Act, was passed by the United States Congress on December 16, 2010, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 17, 2010.
Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association v. FCC, 275 F.3d 337 was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Congress required satellite television carriers to carry all requesting local broadcast stations in the market where the carrier voluntarily decides to carry one local station in order to, in part, preserve a multiplicity of local broadcast outlets for over-the-air-viewers who do not subscribe either to satellite or cable service.
The bill H.R. 3626, long title "To extend the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 for 10 years", is a bill that extended the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 for ten years. The Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 made it "unlawful to manufacture, import, sell, ship, deliver, possess, transfer, or receive any firearm" that is not detectable by a walk-through metal detector or "of which any major component, when subjected to inspection by x-ray machines commonly used at airports, does not generate an image that accurately depicts the shape of the component." H.R. 3626 passed the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress.
The USA Freedom Act is a U.S. law enacted on June 2, 2015, that restored and modified several provisions of the Patriot Act, which had expired the day before. The act imposes some new limits on the bulk collection of telecommunication metadata on U.S. citizens by American intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency. It also restores authorization for roving wiretaps and tracking lone wolf terrorists. The title of the act is a ten-letter backronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015.
The U.S. Congress enacted major amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006. Each of these amendments coincided with an impending expiration of some of the Act's special provisions, which originally were set to expire by 1970. However, in recognition of the voting discrimination that continued despite the Act, Congress repeatedly amended the Act to reauthorize the special provisions.
The STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014 is a bill related to the regulation of satellite broadcasting in the United States.
The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is an Act of the United States Congress introduced by John Lewis (GA-5) that allows the reopening of cold cases of suspected violent crimes committed against African Americans before 1970. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the legislation on June 20, 2007, by a vote of 422 to 2. The U.S. Senate passed the legislation on September 24, 2008, by unanimous consent, and President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on October 7.
