Statement of Senator Russ Feingold
On Final Passage of the Patriot Act Reauthorization
As Prepared for Delivery from the Senate Floor
Listen to my Statement from the Senate Floor
March 2, 2006
Mr. President, in a few minutes, the Senate will conclude a process
that began over a year ago by reauthorizing the Patriot Act. I will
have a few closing remarks but first I want to take this opportunity
to thank the extraordinary staff who have worked on this bill for so
long. These men and women, on both sides of the aisle, have worked extremely
hard and they deserve to be recognized. I ask unanimous consent that
a list of their names be printed in the Record after my remarks.
Mr. President, beginning in November when we first saw a draft of the
conference report, I have spoken at length about the substance of this
bill. I hoped that when we started the task of reauthorizing the Patriot
Act at the beginning of last year, the end product would be something
that the whole Senate could support. We had a real chance to pass a
bill that would both reauthorize the tools to prevent terrorism and
fix the provisions that threaten the rights and freedoms of innocent
Americans. This conference report, even as amended by the bill incorporating
the White House deal that we passed yesterday, falls well short of that
goal. I will vote no.
Protecting the country from terrorism while also protecting our rights
is a challenge for every one of us, particularly in the current political
climate, and it is a challenge we all take seriously. I know that many
Senators who will vote for this reauthorization bill in a few minutes
would have preferred to enact the bill we passed without a single objection
in July of last year. I appreciate that so many of my colleagues came
to recognize the need to take the opportunity presented by the sunset
provisions included in the original Patriot Act to make changes that
would better protect civil liberties than did the law we enacted in
haste in October 2001.
Nevertheless, I am deeply disappointed that we have largely wasted
this opportunity to fix the obvious problems with the Patriot Act.
The reason I spent so much time in the past few days talking about
how the public views the Patriot Act was to make it clear that this
fight was not about one Senator arguing the details of the law. This
fight was about trying to restore the public’s trust in our government.
That trust has been severely shaken as the public learned more about
the Patriot Act, which was passed with so little debate in 2001, and
as the administration resisted congressional oversight efforts and repeatedly
politicized the reauthorization process. The revelations about secret
warrantless surveillance late last year only confirmed the suspicions
of many in our country that the government is willing to trample the
rule of law and constitutional guarantees in the fight against terrorism.
The negative reaction to the Patriot Act has been overwhelming. Over
400 state and local government bodies passed resolutions pleading with
Congress to change the law. Citizens have signed petitions, library
associations and campus groups have organized to petition the Congress
to act, numerous editorials have been written urging Congress not to
reauthorize the law without adequate protections for civil liberties.
These things occurred because Americans across the country recognize
that the Patriot Act includes provisions that pose a threat to their
privacy and liberty -- values that are at the very core of what this
country represents, of who we are as a people.
In 2001, we were viciously attacked by terrorists who care nothing
for American freedoms and American values. And we as a people came together
to fight back, and we are prepared to make great sacrifices to defeat
those who would destroy us. But what we will not do, what we cannot
do, is destroy our own freedoms in the process.
Without freedom, we are not America. If we don’t preserve our
liberties, we cannot win this war, no matter how many terrorists we
capture or kill.
That is why the several Senators who have said at one time or another
during this debate things like, “Civil liberties do not mean much
when you are dead” are wrong about America at the most basic level.
They do not understand what this country is all about. Theirs is a vision
that the founders of this nation, who risked everything for freedom,
would categorically reject. And so do the American people.
Americans want to defeat terrorism, and they want the basic character
of this country to survive and prosper. They want to empower the government
to protect the nation from terrorists, and they want protections against
government overreaching and overreacting. They know it might not be
easy, but they expect the Congress to figure out how to do it. They
don’t want defeatism on either score. They want both security
and liberty, and unless we give them both – and we can, if we
try – we have failed.
This fight is not over Mr. President. The vote today will not assuage
the deep and legitimate concerns that the public has about the Patriot
Act. I am convinced that in the end, the government will respond to
the people, as it should. We will defeat the terrorists, and we will
preserve the freedom and liberty that make this the greatest country
on the face of the earth.
I yield the floor.
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