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water rights

(Encyclopedia)water rights, in law, the qualified privilege of a landowner to use the water adjacent to or flowing through his property. The privilege, also known as riparian rights, may be modified or even denied ...

USA PATRIOT Act

(Encyclopedia)USA PATRIOT Act [Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorists], 2001, U.S. federal law intended to give federal authorities increased ...

Neutrality Act

(Encyclopedia)Neutrality Act, law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Aug., 1935. It was designed to keep the United States out of a possible European war by banning shi...

Test Act

(Encyclopedia)Test Act, 1673, English statute that excluded from public office (both military and civil) all those who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, who refused to receive the communion acc...

Carey Land Act

(Encyclopedia)Carey Land Act, sponsored by Sen. Joseph M. Carey and passed by the U.S. Congress in 1894. The act provided for the transfer to Western states of U.S.-owned desert lands on the condition that they be ...

Americans with Disabilities Act

(Encyclopedia)Americans with Disabilities Act, U.S. civil-rights law, enacted 1990, that forbids discrimination of various sorts against persons with physical or mental handicaps. Its primary emphasis is on enablin...

Equal Rights Amendment

(Encyclopedia)Equal Rights Amendment: see civil rights; feminism. ...

natural rights

(Encyclopedia)natural rights, political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew ou...

Robinson-Patman Act

(Encyclopedia)Robinson-Patman Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1936 to supplement the Clayton Antitrust Act. The act, advanced by Congressman Wright Patman, forbade any person or firm engaged in interstate comme...

victims' rights

(Encyclopedia)victims' rights, rights of victims in the prosecution of the crimes commited against them. Nearly all U.S. states have enacted some victims rights legislation; federal legislation also has been passed...