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S. 1967 119th Congress Senate

PROTECT Act of 2025

Official title: A bill to amend the Stored Communications Act to include Tribal courts as courts of competent jurisdiction, to amend the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 to con… Show full official titleShow less

Official title: A bill to amend the Stored Communications Act to include Tribal courts as courts of competent jurisdiction, to amend the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 to confer Tribal jurisdiction over controlled substances, related offenses, and firearms, and for other purposes.

Introduced: June 5, 2025 Introduced by: Steve Daines Republican · Montana See on congress.gov
Native Americans
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 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Jun 5, 2025
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs.
Jun 5, 2025
Introduced in Senate
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What's happening now June 5, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs.

 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Protection for Reservation Occupants against Trafficking and Evasive Communications Today Act of 2025 or the PROTECT Act of 2025

This bill expands special tribal criminal jurisdiction (STCJ) to include certain controlled substance-related offenses and firearms offenses. It also allows tribal courts to execute warrants for electronic material.

STCJ allows participating tribes to investigate, prosecute, convict, and sentence both Indian and non-Indian offenders who commit covered crimes in Indian country against Indian victims. Covered crimes currently include assault of tribal justice personnel, child violence, dating violence, domestic violence, obstruction of justice, sexual violence, sex trafficking, stalking, and a violation of a protection order.

The bill expands STCJ to allow participating tribes to prosecute individuals for controlled substance-related offenses (i.e., drug trafficking, unlawful drug possession, or unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia) and firearms offenses (i.e., use or possession of a firearm in furtherance of a covered crime or by a person who has been convicted of domestic violence).

Additionally, the bill allows participating tribes to exercise STCJ over a controlled substance-related offense or a firearms offense if neither the defendant nor the alleged victim is an Indian. (Currently, this exception only applies in cases of obstruction of justice or assault of tribal justice personnel.)

The bill allows offenders convicted pursuant to STCJ to be incarcerated through the Bureau of Prisons Tribal Prisoner Program.

The bill gives tribal courts the same authority as state courts to compel service providers to disclose stored electronic communication information through court-issued warrants, court orders, or administrative subpoenas.

 Related & companion bills 2
  • HR 3773 Identical bill PROTECT Act of 2025
  • S 1574 Tribal Access to Electronic Evidence Act
 Bill text 1 version

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1
 Lobbying activity 22

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

Bodies those filers lobbied

A filing lists the bills it worked on and the parts of government it contacted in separate sections, so these are the bodies those filers named anywhere in the filing, not a per-bill breakdown.

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 Cosponsors 1
All 1 Democratic 1
D
Smith, Tina
Minnesota · Jun 5, 2025
Cite this page click to expand
APA
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 1967: PROTECT Act of 2025. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1967/
MLA
"S. 1967: PROTECT Act of 2025." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1967/.
Bluebook (legal)
S. 1967, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1967/.
Markdown link
[S. 1967: PROTECT Act of 2025](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-1967/)
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