The vote to extend the Patriot Act failed last week, but sailed to an easy vote Monday night with a vote of 275 – 144.
Last week’s vote surprised many lawmakers, with some not even aware the House was considering it under special, expedited rules.
“Clearly we wanted to see the bill passed,” said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) when asked to defend his method of summoning the Patriot Act renewal to the floor last week.
Lawmakers crafted the Patriot Act in response to the September 11th attacks.
The Patriot Act extensions deal with special “roving” wiretaps, which allow law enforcement officials to use one search warrant to monitor a suspect’s calls, even if he or she skips from phone to phone. Traditional search warrants only apply to a single telephone line. The bill also grants anti-terrorism officials the authority to search library records.