50 USC Chapter 36 - FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE | Title 50 - War and National Defense | U.S. Code

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-14. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

prev | next

SUBCHAPTER I—ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE Sec. 1801. Definitions. 1802. Electronic surveillance authorization without court order; certification by Attorney General; reports to Congressional committees; transmittal under seal; duties and compensation of communication common carrier; applications; jurisdiction of court. 1803. Designation of judges. 1804. Applications for court orders. 1805. Issuance or order. 1805a to 1805c. Repealed. 1806. Use of information. 1807. Report to Administrative Office of the United States Court and to Congress. 1808. Report of Attorney General to Congressional committees; limitation on authority or responsibility of information gathering activities of Congressional committees; report of Congressional committees to Congress. 1809. Criminal sanctions. 1810. Civil liability. 1811. Authorization during time of war. 1812. Statement of exclusive means by which electronic surveillance and interception of certain communications may be conducted. SUBCHAPTER II—PHYSICAL SEARCHES 1821. Definitions. 1822. Authorization of physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes. 1823. Application for order. 1824. Issuance of order. 1825. Use of information. 1826. Congressional oversight. 1827. Penalties. 1828. Civil liability. 1829. Authorization during time of war. SUBCHAPTER III—PEN REGISTERS AND TRAP AND TRACE DEVICES FOR FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PURPOSES 1841. Definitions. 1842. Pen registers and trap and trace devices for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. 1843. Authorization during emergencies. 1844. Authorization during time of war. 1845. Use of information. 1846. Congressional oversight. SUBCHAPTER IV—ACCESS TO CERTAIN BUSINESS RECORDS FOR FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE PURPOSES 1861. Access to certain business records for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations. 1862. Congressional oversight. 1863. Repealed. SUBCHAPTER V—REPORTING REQUIREMENT 1871. Semiannual report of the Attorney General. SUBCHAPTER VI—ADDITIONAL PROCEDURES REGARDING CERTAIN PERSONS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES 1881. Definitions. 1881a. Procedures for targeting certain persons outside the United States other than United States persons. 1881b. Certain acquisitions inside the United States targeting United States persons outside the United States. 1881c. Other acquisitions targeting United States persons outside the United States. 1881d. Joint applications and concurrent authorizations. 1881e. Use of information acquired under this subchapter. 1881f. Congressional oversight. 1881g. Savings provision. SUBCHAPTER VII—PROTECTION OF PERSONS ASSISTING THE GOVERNMENT 1885. Definitions. 1885a. Procedures for implementing statutory defenses. 1885b. Preemption. 1885c. Reporting.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for the contained sections. If there are multiple sections, they are presented in section number order (original document order).

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Thursday, June 27, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

top

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

50 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large
§ 1801	nt	2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(b)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1801	nt new	2012	112-238 [Sec.] 1	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881	nt	2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881a		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881b		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881c		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881d		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881e		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881f		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631
§ 1881g		2012	112-238 [Sec.] 2(a)(1)	126 Stat. 1631

50 USC Chapter 36 - FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE

U.S. Code Toolbox

Law about... Articles from Wex

Get Involved

Find a Lawyer