Anticipating the Patriot Act

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After 9/11 the American government introduced the 'Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001', which for obvious reasons became known just as the Patriot Act. However, it has been argued that the Patriot Act was registered with the Library of Congress months beforehand, and supposedly the proof can be found online:


It's certainly true that the text of the legislation begins like this:


But so did the Authorisation for Use of Military Force:


And so does the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001, even though it wasn't introduced until March.

And the HEROS act wasn't introduced until October, but it has the same date:


And the ILSA extension act was introduced in May 2001, but still starts with the January 3rd reference:


And a quick Google search shows many, many more.

This doesn't, of course, mean that any of this legislation was written, or "registered with the Library of Congress" on this date. The date is just the standard opening line for the beginning of every bill passed that year, which says the 107th Congress that began on the 3rd of January is the one that passed it. It's the same every year: the 2002 bills all begin with a date of January 23rd, for instance. And there's nothing strange or suspicious about that in the slightest.