The U.S. House of Representatives has approved revisions to the USA Patriot Act, which the Bush administration says is a key tool in its fight against terrorism.

The lawmakers voted, 280 to 138, on Tuesday night to approve measures that the Senate passed last week (The Chronicle, March 3), so the bill now heads to President Bush for his signature, which is expected. Both chambers had previously approved a reauthorization of some of the law’s provisions that had been set to expire on Friday; that bill also is awaiting the president’s signature.

The bill approved on Tuesday amends the Patriot Act to permit legal challenges to government demands for materials such as books. It also writes into the law a provision that libraries are not susceptible to a subpoenalike order known as a national-security letter unless the library provides an “electronic communication service.”

But Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, said that the bill adds “no meaningful protection for library records” because almost all libraries do offer electronic access to patrons.

During the House’s debate on the bill, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said that criticism of the Patriot Act was unfounded because its powers have not been abused.

But Representative Conyers cited what he said were several examples of abuses. One, he said, was the Bush administration’s decision in 2004 to deny a visa to Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss professor of Islamic studies and philosophy (The Chronicle, September 10, 2004). The administration’s decision was based on a Patriot Act provision that empowers the government to deny a visa to anyone who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity” or “persuades others” to do so. That decision prevented Mr. Ramadan from taking a tenured position he had been offered at the University of Notre Dame.