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59-615: In the United States Code , the IEEPA is Title 50, §§1701–1707. The IEEPA authorizes the president to declare the existence of an "unusual and extraordinary threat... to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States" that originates "in whole or substantial part outside the United States." It further authorizes the president, after such a declaration, to block transactions and freeze assets to deal with

118-450: A § ) as their basic coherent units, and sections are numbered sequentially across the entire title without regard to the previously-mentioned divisions of titles. Sections are often divided into (from largest to smallest) subsections, paragraphs, subparagraphs, clauses, subclauses, items, and subitems. Congress, by convention, names a particular subdivision of a section according to its largest element. For example, "subsection (c)(3)(B)(iv)"

177-485: A limited time, such as most appropriation acts or budget laws, which apply only for a single fiscal year . If these limited provisions are significant, however, they may be printed as "notes" underneath related sections of the Code. The codification is based on the content of the laws, however, not the vehicle by which they are adopted; so, for instance, if an appropriations act contains substantive, permanent provisions (as

236-477: A new Title 52 , which has not been enacted into positive law. When sections are repealed, their text is deleted and replaced by a note summarizing what used to be there. This is so that lawyers reading old cases can understand what the cases are talking about. As a result, some portions of the Code consist entirely of empty chapters full of historical notes. For example, Title 8, Chapter 7 is labeled "Exclusion of Chinese". This contains historical notes relating to

295-641: A result of an antitrust settlement when the parent of Lawyers Co-operative Publishing acquired West. These annotated versions contain notes following each section of the law, which organize and summarize court decisions, law review articles, and other authorities that pertain to the code section, and may also include uncodified provisions that are part of the Public Laws. The publishers of these versions frequently issue supplements (in hard copy format as pocket parts ) that contain newly enacted laws, which may not yet have appeared in an official published version of

354-566: A section in the Code. To cite any particular section, it is enough to know its title and section numbers. According to one legal style manual, a sample citation would be " Privacy Act of 1974 , 5 U.S.C.   § 552a (2006)", read aloud as "Title five, United States Code, section five fifty-two A" or simply "five USC five fifty-two A". Some section numbers consist of awkward-sounding combinations of letters, hyphens, and numerals. They are especially prevalent in Title 42. A typical example

413-513: A series of provisions together as a means of addressing a social or governmental problem; those provisions often fall in different logical areas of the Code. For example, an Act providing relief for family farms might affect items in Title 7 (Agriculture), Title 26 (Tax), and Title 43 ( Public Lands ). When the Act is codified, its various provisions might well be placed in different parts of those various Titles. Traces of this process are generally found in

472-414: Is common for lawyers to refer to a " Chapter 11 bankruptcy " or a "Subchapter S corporation " (often shortened to " S corporation "). In the context of federal statutes, the word "title" has two slightly different meanings. It can refer to the highest subdivision of the Code itself, but it can also refer to the highest subdivision of an Act of Congress which subsequently becomes part of an existing title of

531-408: Is not a subsection but a clause, namely clause (iv) of subparagraph (B) of paragraph (3) of subsection (c); if the identity of the subsection and paragraph were clear from the context, one would refer to the clause as "subparagraph (B)(iv)". Not all titles use the same series of subdivisions above the section level, and they may arrange them in different order. For example, in Title 26 (the tax code),

590-583: Is published by the U.S. House of Representatives ' Office of the Law Revision Counsel . New editions are published every six years, with cumulative supplements issued each year. The official version of these laws appears in the United States Statutes at Large , a chronological, uncodified compilation. The official text of an Act of Congress is that of the "enrolled bill" (traditionally printed on parchment ) presented to

649-462: Is required to determine what laws are in force at any given time. The United States Code is the result of an effort to make finding relevant and effective statutes simpler by reorganizing them by subject matter, and eliminating expired and amended sections. The Code is maintained by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel (LRC) of the U.S. House of Representatives. The LRC determines which statutes in

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708-721: Is routinely cited by the Supreme Court and other federal courts without mentioning this theoretical caveat. On a day-to-day basis, very few lawyers cross-reference the Code to the Statutes at Large . Attempting to capitalize on the possibility that the text of the United States Code can differ from the United States Statutes at Large , Bancroft-Whitney for many years published a series of volumes known as United States Code Service (USCS), which used

767-553: Is sometimes the case), these provisions will be incorporated into the Code even though they were adopted as part of a non-permanent enactment. Early efforts at codifying the Acts of Congress were undertaken by private publishers; these were useful shortcuts for research purposes, but had no official status. Congress undertook an official codification called the Revised Statutes of the United States approved June 22, 1874, for

826-523: Is that the original drafters of the Code in 1926 failed to foresee the explosive growth of federal legislation directed to "The Public Health and Welfare" (as Title 42 is literally titled) and did not fashion statutory classifications and section numbering schemes that could readily accommodate such expansion. Title 42 grew in size from 6 chapters and 106 sections in 1926 to over 160 chapters and 7,000 sections as of 1999. Titles that have been enacted into positive law are indicated by blue shading below with

885-577: Is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), which is codified in Chapter 21B of Title 42 at 42 U.S.C.   § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C.   § 2000bb-4 . In the case of RFRA, Congress was trying to squeeze a new act into Title 42 between Chapter 21A (ending at 42 U.S.C.   § 2000aa-12 ) and Chapter 22 (beginning at 42 U.S.C.   § 2001 ). The underlying problem

944-722: The Statutes at Large for the year of enactment. Regulations promulgated by executive agencies through the rulemaking process set out in the Administrative Procedure Act are published chronologically in the Federal Register and then codified in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Similarly, state statutes and regulations are often codified into state-specific codes. September 11 terror attacks Too Many Requests If you report this error to

1003-552: The Chinese Exclusion Act , which is no longer in effect. There are conflicting opinions on the number of federal crimes, but many have argued that there has been explosive growth and it has become overwhelming. In 1982, the U.S. Department of Justice could not come up with a number, but estimated 3,000 crimes in the United States Code. In 1998, the American Bar Association said that it

1062-616: The First Amendment . The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under the U.S. Department of Treasury , however, interpreted this exemption narrowly to claim it held the right to prohibit any transactions associated with "informational materials not fully created and in existence at the date of the transaction." In response, the Berman-sponsored Free Trade in Ideas Act—passed by Congress in 1994—revised

1121-708: The National Emergencies Act , and then passed the IEEPA to restore the emergency power in a limited, overseeable form. Unlike TWEA, IEEPA was drafted to permit presidential emergency declarations only in response to threats originating outside the United States. Beginning with Jimmy Carter in response to the Iran Hostage Crisis , presidents have invoked IEEPA to safeguard U.S. national security interests by freezing or "blocking" assets of belligerent foreign governments, or certain foreign nationals abroad. In 1988, Congress passed amendments to

1180-749: The President for his signature or disapproval . Upon enactment of a law, the original bill is delivered to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). After authorization from the OFR, copies are distributed as " slip laws " (as unbound, individually paginated pamphlets ) by the Government Publishing Office (GPO). The OFR assembles annual volumes of

1239-593: The Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 ("TWEA"). Under TWEA, starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, presidents had the power to declare emergencies without limiting their scope or duration, without citing the relevant statutes, and without congressional oversight. The Supreme Court in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer limited what a president could do in such an emergency, but did not limit

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1298-511: The United States Code (published as Statutes at Large Volume 44, Part 1) includes cross-reference tables between the USC and two of these unofficial codes, United States Compiled Statutes Annotated by West Publishing Co. and Federal Statutes Annotated by Edward Thompson Co. During the 1920s, some members of Congress revived the codification project, resulting in the approval of the United States Code by Congress in 1926. The official version of

1357-488: The 13 that he declared overall) relying primarily or exclusively on IEEPA authority during his 2017–21 term; Trump also used or threatened use of its powers in unconventional and unprecedented manners (including executive actions utilizing powers under the act that prompted legal challenges). On May 30, 2019, the White House announced that Trump would use IEEPA powers to introduce tariffs on Mexican exports in response to

1416-583: The Berman Amendment) and First Amendment protections applying to users of the apps. As of 2024, the following IEEPA emergencies are active. United States Code The United States Code (formally the Code of Laws of the United States of America ) is the official codification of the general and permanent federal statutes of the United States . It contains 53 titles, which are organized into numbered sections. The U.S. Code

1475-656: The Code from a private company. The two leading annotated versions are the United States Code Annotated , abbreviated as USCA, and the United States Code Service , abbreviated as USCS. The USCA is published by West (part of Thomson Reuters ), and USCS is published by LexisNexis (part of Reed Elsevier ), which purchased the publication from the Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Co. in 1997 as

1534-464: The Code is published by the LRC ( Office of the Law Revision Counsel ) as a series of paper volumes. The first edition of the Code was contained in a single bound volume; today, it spans several large volumes. Normally, a new edition of the Code is issued every six years, with annual cumulative supplements identifying the changes made by Congress since the last "main edition" was published. The official code

1593-588: The Code, "From 1897 to 1907 a commission was engaged in an effort to codify the great mass of accumulating legislation. The work of the commission involved an expenditure of over $ 300,000, but was never carried to completion." Only the Criminal Code of 1909 and the Judicial Code of 1911 were enacted. In the absence of a comprehensive official code, private publishers once again collected the more recent statutes into unofficial codes. The first edition of

1652-555: The Code, as well as updated secondary materials such as new court decisions on the subject. When an attorney is viewing an annotated code on an online service, such as Westlaw or LexisNexis, all the citations in the annotations are hyperlinked to the referenced court opinions and other documents. The Code is divided into 53 titles (listed below), which deal with broad, logically organized areas of legislation. Titles may optionally be divided into subtitles, parts, subparts, chapters, and subchapters. All titles have sections (represented by

1711-533: The Code. For example, when Americans refer to Title VII, they are usually referring to the seventh title of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . That Act is actually codified in Title 42 of the United States Code , not Title 7 . The intermediate subdivisions between title and section are helpful for reading the Code (since Congress uses them to group together related sections), but they are not needed to cite

1770-464: The Notes accompanying the "lead section" associated with the popular name, and in cross-reference tables that identify Code sections corresponding to particular Acts of Congress. Usually, the individual sections of a statute are incorporated into the Code exactly as enacted; however, sometimes editorial changes are made by the LRC (for instance, the phrase "the date of enactment of this Act" is replaced by

1829-944: The Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction blocking the sanctions in January 2021, through a challenge to the order brought by four dual-national American law professors and the Open Society Justice Initiative . (The Biden administration lifted the ICC sanctions in April 2021.) Also in September 2020, Trump used the IEEPA to order the removal of social media platforms TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores as well as prohibit domestic business transactions involving their respective China-based parent companies ByteDance and Tencent ;

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1888-464: The Statutes at Large and the text of a provision of the United States Code that has not been enacted as positive law, the text of the Statutes at Large takes precedence. In contrast, if Congress enacts a particular title (or other component) of the Code into positive law, the enactment repeals all of the previous Acts of Congress from which that title of the Code derives; in their place, Congress gives

1947-622: The Supreme Court ruled that § 92 was still valid law. A positive law title is a title that is itself a federal statute, that is to say that it is one that has been enacted and codified into law by the United States Congress . The title itself has been enacted. By contrast, a non-positive law title is a title that has not been codified into federal law, and is instead merely an editorial compilation of individually enacted federal statutes. By law, those titles of

2006-664: The TWEA and IEEPA, authored by Rep. Howard Berman ( D – CA ), aimed at protecting the rights of American citizens to receive information, regardless of the country of origin of such materials used, by exempting varied methods of communication from regulation. The revisions to both acts, known collectively as the "Berman Amendment," restrict the President's authority to regulate or prohibit the importation or exportation of various forms of print, audio and video materials, artwork and other images, and other informational materials protected under

2065-536: The U.S. Treasury. In October 2001, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act which, in part, enhanced IEEPA asset blocking provisions under §1702(a)(1)(B) to permit the blocking of assets during the "pendency of an investigation." This statutory change gave the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control the power to block assets without the need to provide evidence of the blocking subject's wrongdoing nor to permit

2124-485: The United States Code that have not been enacted into positive law are " prima facie evidence" of the law in effect. The United States Statutes at Large remains the ultimate authority. If a dispute arises as to the accuracy or completeness of the codification of an unenacted title, the courts will turn to the language in the United States Statutes at Large. In case of a conflict between the text of

2183-523: The United States Statutes at Large should be codified, and which existing statutes are affected by amendments or repeals, or have simply expired by their own terms. The LRC updates the Code accordingly. Because of this codification approach, a single named statute (like the Taft–Hartley Act or the Embargo Act ) may or may not appear in a single place in the Code. Often, complex legislation bundles

2242-686: The XML was designed to be consistent with the Akoma Ntoso project (from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs ) XML schema, and the OASIS LegalDocML technical committee standard will be based upon Akoma Ntoso. A number of other online versions are freely available, such as Cornell 's Legal Information Institute . Practicing lawyers who can afford them almost always use an annotated version of

2301-508: The ability to regulate or prohibit communication that "does not involve a transfer of anything of value"; imports or exports of information or any informational materials; and transactions incidental to travel. Donations intended to relieve human suffering, such as food, clothing or medicine are also excluded unless the President specifically finds their inclusion necessary. Congress enacted the IEEPA in 1977 to clarify and restrict presidential power during times of declared national emergency under

2360-500: The actual date). Though authorized by statute, these changes do not constitute positive law . The authority for the material in the United States Code comes from its enactment through the legislative process and not from its presentation in the Code. For example, the United States Code omitted 12 U.S.C.   § 92 for decades, apparently because it was thought to have been repealed. In its 1993 ruling in U.S. National Bank of Oregon v. Independent Insurance Agents of America ,

2419-471: The actual text of the United States Statutes at Large ; the series is now published by the Michie Company after Bancroft-Whitney parent Thomson Corporation divested the title as a condition of acquiring West . Only "general and permanent" laws are codified in the United States Code; the Code does not usually include provisions that apply only to a limited number of people (a private law ) or for

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2478-487: The app and, as also suggested by ByteDance in court documents pertaining to its lawsuit to overturn the order, a ticket reservation prank waged by some users of the video platform that depressed attendance for a campaign rally he held in Tulsa, Oklahoma that June. The executive order was blocked by federal courts in two separate cases on grounds that the sanctions likely violated IEEPA's informational materials exemption (under

2537-427: The blocking subject a chance to effectively respond to the allegations in court. Executing these blocking actions led to a series of legal cases challenging federal authority to indefinitely prevent charitable organizations from accessing their assets held in the United States. President Donald Trump used the IEEPA extensively, sanctioning more than 3,700 entities and invoking 11 national emergency declarations (out of

2596-522: The court's investigation into allegations of war crimes committed by the U.S. and Israel in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories , respectively. Critics considered the order an effort to intimidate ICC civil servants from proceeding with its investigation and accused the administration of targeting the two prosecutors, both of African origin, based on their race. The U.S. District Court for

2655-585: The emergency declaration power itself. A 1973 Senate investigation found (in Senate Report 93-549 ) that four declared emergencies remained in effect: the 1933 banking crisis with respect to the hoarding of gold, a 1950 emergency with respect to the Korean War , a 1970 emergency regarding the postal workers strike , and a 1971 emergency in response to the government's deteriorating economic and fiscal conditions. Congress terminated these emergencies with

2714-546: The enacted laws and publishes them as the United States Statutes at Large . By law, the text of the Statutes at Large is "legal evidence" of the laws enacted by Congress. Slip laws are also competent evidence. The Statutes at Large , however, is not a convenient tool for legal research. It is arranged strictly in chronological order; statutes addressing related topics may be scattered across many volumes, and are not consolidated with later amendments. Statutes often repeal or amend earlier laws, and extensive cross-referencing

2773-477: The laws in effect as of December 1, 1873. Congress re-enacted a corrected version in 1878. The 1874 version of the Revised Statutes were enacted as positive law, but the 1878 version was not and subsequent enactments of Congress were not incorporated into the official code, so that over time researchers once again had to delve through many volumes of the Statutes at Large . According to the preface to

2832-685: The national security threat of illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States. As part of an ongoing trade war with China , on August 24, 2019, Trump tweeted that he "hereby ordered" U.S. companies to start looking at alternatives to China on the basis of claimed powers under IEEPA. Trump, however, did not formally declare an emergency as required by IEEPA. In September 2020, the Trump administration sanctioned and imposed visa restrictions on two International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and Jurisdiction Complementarity and Cooperation Division Director Phakiso Mochochoko , over

2891-559: The non-exhaustive list of exempted materials was illustrative in nature, inferring that unlisted materials not yet invented or in wide use at the time of its passage would be prohibited from being subject to sanctions or other regulation under both acts. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks , President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13224 under the IEEPA to block the assets of terrorist organizations. The President delegated blocking authority to federal agencies led by

2950-463: The order of subdivision runs: Title – Subtitle – Chapter – Subchapter – Part – Subpart – Section – Subsection – Paragraph – Subparagraph – Clause – Subclause – Item – Subitem. The "Section" division is the core organizational component of the Code, and the "Title" division is always the largest division of the Code. Which intermediate levels between Title and Section appear, if any, varies from Title to Title. For example, in Title 38 (Veteran's Benefits),

3009-432: The order runs Title – Part – Chapter – Subchapter – Section. The word "title" in this context is roughly akin to a printed "volume", although many of the larger titles span multiple volumes. Similarly, no particular size or length is associated with other subdivisions; a section might run several pages in print, or just a sentence or two. Some subdivisions within particular titles acquire meaning of their own; for example, it

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3068-495: The original amendment's First Amendment exemptions to include newer and forthcoming mediums (including intangible items such as television broadcasts and methods of personal communication), further clarifying that the President's emergency sanction powers under the IEEPA and TWEA cannot be used with regard to any information or informational materials, regardless of their format or medium, or whether they are intended for personal or commercial use. The updated language also clarified that

3127-538: The restrictions would have become applicable to TikTok unless it was sold to an American company within 45 days of the executive order's issuance. Observers (including Trump administration critics and many TikTok users) raised First Amendment concerns with the executive order and suggested that, while national security concerns were cited to justify them, the sanctions were prompted by the administration's hostile relations toward China in general and retaliation against TikTok in particular for certain anti-Trump content hosted by

3186-551: The task. The Code generally contains only those Acts of Congress, or statutes, designated as public laws. The Code itself does not include Executive Orders or other executive-branch documents related to the statutes, or rules promulgated by the courts. However, such related material is sometimes contained in notes to relevant statutory sections or in appendices. The Code does not include statutes designated at enactment as private laws, nor statutes that are considered temporary in nature, such as appropriations. These laws are included in

3245-428: The threat. In the event of an actual attack on the United States, the president can also confiscate property connected with a country, group, or person that aided in the attack. IEEPA falls under the provisions of the National Emergencies Act (NEA) , which means that an emergency declared under the act must be renewed annually to remain in effect. The authority given to the President under the IEEPA does not grant them

3304-424: The title of the Code itself the force of law. This process makes that title of the United States Code "legal evidence" of the law in force. Where a title has been enacted into positive law, a court may neither permit nor require proof of the underlying original Acts of Congress. The distinction between enacted and unenacted titles is largely academic because the Code is nearly always accurate. The United States Code

3363-530: The year of last enactment. The Office of Law Revision Counsel (LRC) has produced draft text for three additional titles of federal law. The subject matter of these proposed titles exists today in one or several existing titles. The LRC announced an "editorial reclassification" of the federal laws governing voting and elections that went into effect on September 1, 2014. This reclassification involved moving various laws previously classified in Titles 2 and 42 into

3422-527: Was last printed in 2018. Both the LRC and the GPO offer electronic versions of the Code to the public. The LRC electronic version used to be as much as 18 months behind current legislation, but as of 2014 it is one of the most current versions available online. The United States Code is available from the LRC at uscode.house.gov in both HTML and XML bulk formats. The "United States Legislative Markup" (USLM) schema of

3481-638: Was likely much higher than 3,000, but did not give a specific estimate. In 2008, the Heritage Foundation published a report that put the number at a minimum of 4,450. When staff for a task force of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee asked the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to update its 2008 calculation of criminal offenses in the USC in 2013, the CRS responded that they lack the manpower and resources to accomplish

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