Rhetoric vs. Reality on the USA PATRIOT ACT

Rhetoric: "Russ Feingold opposed the Patriot Act that has protected us from terrorists without affecting the rights of innocent Americans."

Reality Senator Feingold understands that our number one priority is to fight terrorism. He also knows we must get it right by also protecting the very constitutionally-protected liberties that make us Americans. Senator Feingold supported 90% of the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, which contained important measures to update law-enforcement tools to help in the fight against international terrorism. However, he voted against the bill because he believed certain provisions of the Act represented a very dangerous infringement on our civil liberties. Provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act give the government the ability to obtain the disclosure of all business records, including those containing sensitive personal information like medical records from hospitals or doctors, or educational records, or records of what books someone has taken out of the library, based on their assertion that the records are needed for a terrorism investigation, with no meaningful judicial oversight. Senator Feingold also has serious concerns about provisions that would unnecessarily give the government expanded powers to secretly search homes and wiretap the telephones and personal computers of citizens who have no connection to terrorism whatsoever. Senator Feingold has co-sponsored a bipartisan bill, the SAFE Act, to correct the very portions of the USA Patriot Act that he initially opposed - and conservative Republican Senators like Larry Craig (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), and John Sununu (R-NH) who voted for the original bill, now agree that changes must be made.

• Representative Don Young (R-AK) has said, "everyone voted for it but it was stupid, it is what you call 'emotional voting'... because we didn't follow it through, we didn't study it. I say it's the worst piece of legislation we've ever passed" (Talk of Alaska Radio Interview, 2/11/2003).
• Former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) has said "I told the President I thought his Justice Department was out of control... Are we going to save ourselves from international terrorism in order to deny the fundamental liberties we protect to ourselves?... It doesn't make sense to me" ("Armey: Justice 'Out of Control,'" USA TODAY, 10/16/2002).
• Timothy Edgar, the ACLU's Legislative Counsel: "The powers of the Patriot Act were not limited to terrorism in any way. Although it was sold as a bill to go after al Qaeda and other terrorists, it was really making changes that would broadly affect Americans' privacy" ("Liberty in the balance: Patriot Act's broad brush," Sacramento Bee, 12/21/03).