This report provides an overview of federal law governing wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping. It also appends citations to state law in the area and contains a bibliography of legal commentary as well as the text of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). This report also includes a brief summary of the recently expired Protect America Act, P.L. 110-55 and of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, P.L. 110-261 (H.R. 6304).

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This report provides background on the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance program (LIHEAP), originally established in 1981 by Title XXVI of P.L. 97-35 and reauthorized several times. It is a block grant program under which the federal government gives states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and commonwealths, and Indian tribal organizations (referred to as grantees) annual grants to operate multi-component home energy assistance programs for needy households.

This report contains an explanation of the major provisions of the Federal estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes. The discussion divides the Federal estate tax into three components: the gross estate, deductions from the gross estate, and computation of the tax, including allowable tax credits.

The Constitution of the United States makes no specific allowance for any one of the co-equal branches to have access to information held by the others and contains no provision expressly establishing a procedure for, or a right of, public access to government information. Nonetheless, Congress has legislated various public access laws. These include two records access statutes — the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act — and two meetings access statutes — the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Government in the Sunshine Act. This report provides background on the issue of government transparency and examines relevant litigation.

This report discusses the child tax credit was initially enacted as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. Congress passed the credit because it believed that the tax structure did not adequately reflect a family’s reduced ability to pay taxes as family size increased. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) increases the child tax credit from its prior law level of $500 to $1,000.

This report discusses the energy policy. Comprehensive energy legislation was introduced in the Senate by both parties by late March (S. 388, S. 389, S. 596, S. 597).

Stock analysts provide research on companies and make recommendations on their stocks. When analysts are employed by brokerage firms and provide information for the firms’ retail and institutional clients, they are called sell-side analysts. Analysts who work specifically for institutional investors like mutual and pension funds are known as buy-side analysts. Because of their widespread presence in the national media, sell-side analysts’ recommendations have become part of the public domain and they can have significant influence on stock prices. This report examines the performance of the stock analysts in the Enron case.

This report examines characteristics of both the insured and the uninsured populations in the United States.

This report reviews many of the core consumer bankruptcy features that have been common to most versions of bankruptcy reform legislation.

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This report summarizes the Clean Air Act and its major regulatory requirements. It describes the Act's major provisions and provides tables listing all major amendments, with the year of enactment and Public Law number, and crossreferencing sections of the Act with the major U.S. Code sections of the codified statute.

This report provides background on Free Trade Areas (FTAs) including: definitions of Free Trade Areas, why countries form FTAs, FTAs in the context of U.S. trade policy, Bush Administration policies and recent developments, the economic impact of FTAs, whether FTAs create trade or divert it, FTAs the the WTO, debate points related to FTAs, relevant legislation, and final conclusions and implications for Congress.

This report discusses how the estate and gift tax works and examines various policy options. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA, P.L. 107-16) repeals the estate tax after 2009. In the 108th Congress, some policymakers have proposed eliminating the sunset provision in the EGTRRA, thus making repeal of the estate tax permanent.

THis report provides a brief overview of major issues underlying the debate about possible structural reforms or improvements to the current Medicare system. Medicare is a nationwide health insurance program for the aged and certain disabled persons.

This report provides background on the 2001 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery from and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, P.L. 107-38 (H.R. 2888) as well as the criteria for use of the funds developed by The Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It also outlines information about supplemental fund distributions in three tables.

This report discusses federal, state, and local government funding for faith-based organizations (FBOs) to provide services to needy citizens. It provides an overview of several selected issues including the effectiveness of FBOs, their accountability for results, and the working relationship that FBOs have at various levels of government.

This report presents tables that provide historical data including service dates, party affiliation, and other information, for 15 House and Senate party leadership posts. This information has been updated to reflect leadership changes in the 107th Congress.

This report lists these 39 resolutions, provides the Security Council vote on each, and sets out the complete text of each resolution. In addition, a number of relevant U.N. documents are included. The texts of the 24 resolutions adopted in 1990 and 1991 may be found in two CRS reports, 90-513 and 91-395.

This report outlines major highlights of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLBA). Only the most basic provisions of this act are briefly described in this report; other CRS reports provide more specific and substantial analyses of the major provisions of the NCLBA.

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This report provides information to policymakers considering a new, smaller, or larger agricultural guestworker program and examines selected labor market, social, and demographic characteristics of the agricultural labor force in the United States for each year from 1996 through 2001.

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