A statute is a formal statement that gives legal authority to a state, a city, or a county over certain policies, behaviors, or actions. Statutes either command or prohibit something. The Patriot Act is an example of a statute. It both commands and prohibits certain actions for the safety of America and all American citizens. The majority of states call statutes by this formal term but several states use the terms legislation or code interchangeably. At the federal level statutes are combined into the federal code, a compilation of all codes affecting the United States as a whole. Individual states also have the ability to enact statutes and these can be found in the capital of each state and are called the legislative code. New statutes are added to existing codes so statute 7k might become 7kk and then 7kkk as more sub-statutes are added over the years. Table III in each code book acts as a table of contents and lists all codes making them easy to find.