Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold On the Patriot Act Conference Report December 13, 2005 I am proud to join this bipartisan, dedicated group of advocates in calling for a Patriot Act reauthorization package that makes reasonable changes to the Patriot Act to safeguard Americans’ civil liberties. In other words, a bill like the one the Senate passed by unanimous consent in July. A month ago, the conventional wisdom was that we had lost the battle to fix the Patriot Act, that there was no way we could stop a bad conference report from becoming law. But then the momentum shifted. A bipartisan group of Senators warned the conference committee that we would fight this conference report if it did not make significant improvements to the Patriot Act on Section 215, on National Security Letters, and on “sneak and peek” search warrants. And Congress didn’t jam through the conference report before Thanksgiving because of the strong opposition to it. So the conference committee went back to work, but unfortunately, the conference report that was filed in the House last week was a major disappointment. Most of the changes we had called for were not made. The conference report fell far short of the reforms the American people have demanded. I appreciate that the conference report includes four-year sunsets on three controversial provisions, but merely sunsetting bad law is not adequate. We need to make substantive changes to the law, and without those changes there will be strong, bipartisan opposition here in the Senate. We said this before, and we meant it. As a result, this conference report will not be smoothly or quickly adopted, and I think it probably won’t be adopted at all. If you have any doubt of that, just look at the range of political perspectives represented here today, and in the bipartisan group of six Senators who have been working together on this issue. Some have suggested that this issue brings together only the far right and the far left, but I think it is clear that people of all political stripes – right, left and center – want to make sure that when we reauthorize the Patriot Act, we do it right. Let me be clear. Fighting the conference report doesn’t mean that the Patriot Act will expire. None of us want that. The President could sign Patriot Act reauthorization legislation into law tomorrow if the House would just take up and pass the compromise Senate bill that was approved unanimously in the Senate earlier this year – a bill that includes important and reasonable privacy protections. The American people have been calling for a new look at the Patriot Act for four long years. It’s time to get the job done right. I want to thank the groups that are here today for all their work, and pledge to them, and to the public, that I will keep fighting in the Senate.

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