The House on Monday voted to reauthorize and extend through Dec. 8 three ways in which Congress expanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterterrorism powers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Last week, an effort to extend these provisions of the so-called Patriot Act and a related intelligence law failed to pass after falling just short of the two-thirds’ majority needed under a special rule. On Monday, however, the bill was able to pass with only a simple majority — and it did so, 275 to 144.
The provisions allow investigators to get “roving wiretap” court orders allowing them to follow terrorism suspects who switch phone numbers or providers; to get orders allowing them to seize “any tangible things” relevant to a security investigation, like a business’s customer records; and to get national-security wiretap orders against non-citizen suspects who are not connected to any foreign power.
Without new legislation, the provisions would expire on Feb. 28. House Republicans pressed the short-term extension so the Judiciary Committee, which is now under Republican control, could hold hearings on them.