Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold on National Security Letters and Reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act September 28, 2005 I am pleased to join Congressman Sanders, Congressman Nadler and these hard-working organizations in calling on the Administration to provide more information about how it is using its National Security Letter authority. This lawsuit demonstrates just how little we know about the use of this unrestrained power, which permits government agents to obtain certain types of business records without any court approval at all. This is a critical time in our review of the USA PATRIOT Act, which expanded the government's authority to issue National Security Letters. Congress and the American public have the right to understand fully how the Patriot Act is being used before any provisions are reauthorized or amended, regardless of whether the courts ultimately decide that the gag rule on National Security Letters is unconstitutional. The Justice Department should immediately release as much information as possible about the records request challenged in this lawsuit. In the past few months, the Administration has repeatedly assured us that it has not used Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to obtain library records, and Attorney General Gonzales told Congress in April that the Justice Department "has no interest in rummaging through the library records" of Americans. While this lawsuit has to do with a different Patriot Act provision, it demonstrates that the Administration has not been candid. The Administration needs to come clean on whether it has asked for reading records. I also want to speak briefly about reauthorization of the Patriot Act. In July, I joined my Senate colleagues in unanimously passing a consensus, bipartisan bill that significantly improves the most controversial provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. It is not perfect, but it makes meaningful improvements to the law. For example, with respect to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which can be used to obtain library, medical and other sensitive business records, the Senate bill would require the government to convince a judge that a person is connected to terrorism or espionage before obtaining those records. It would also require the government in most circumstances to notify the target of a "sneak and peek" search warrant within seven days, instead of the undefined delay that is currently permitted by the Patriot Act. It would eliminate "John Doe roving wiretaps," impose new four-year sunsets on three of the most troublesome provisions, and provide recipients of intrusive business records orders and National Security Letters with the explicit right to challenge them in court. In the House, unfortunately, the outcome was quite different. House leadership refused to allow meaningful amendments to come to a vote on the House floor. While some improvements were incorporated, the end result is still a far cry from what Congress owes the American people -- reining in the parts of the Patriot Act that went too far so as to protect innocent people from government surveillance. The House bill also includes a variety of provisions that have nothing to do with the Patriot Act, such as dramatic and unnecessary expansions of the federal death penalty. Congress must resist the temptation to turn the must-pass Patriot Act reauthorization bill into legislation full of half-baked ideas that have only a tangential relationship to the fight against terrorism. We need to stick to the issue, which is ensuring that American's civil liberties are protected while protecting national security. The Senate's bipartisan compromise takes a big step in the right direction. I will support it in the form that it passed the Senate, but I will continue to push for additional changes to the law. I also have made clear that if the conference committee moves away from the Senate version and ignores public demands for improvements in the Patriot Act, I will strongly oppose the resulting conference report. I was able to support the Senate bill only because it contained meaningful improvements to the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act.

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