[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Page 27943]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              PATRIOT ACT

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, one of the major items that we will be 
taking up prior to the end of the year is the issue of the renewal of 
the so-called USA PATRIOT Act. There was quite an effort in the last 
couple of years in the Senate to try to fix the problems with the 
PATRIOT Act that led me to vote against it originally. That was a very 
difficult time, obviously, after 9/11/2001. The PATRIOT Act got through 
on a very accelerated basis, and a number of us identified serious 
problems that other people didn't have a chance to analyze at the time. 
But the situation now has changed. We have had years to look at this. 
Thankfully, the Senate worked together to do its job on this bill.
  In the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate as a whole, we passed 
changes to the USA PATRIOT Act, along with renewing the provisions 
scheduled to sunset at the end of this year. It was a unanimous vote. 
People from very different philosophies came together and said: Let's 
get this right. Let's make sure law enforcement has the power and the 
ability to go after the terrorist network. But, at the same time, let's 
do what we have to do to protect the civil liberties and rights of 
absolutely law-abiding Americans.
  Sadly, the conference committee did just the reverse. The conference 
committee ignored the will of the Senate. The conference committee did 
not make changes in critical areas such as library records and business 
records, so-called sneak-and-peek searches, and national security 
letters, changes that were essential to reaching the changes that were 
agreed to in the Senate. I didn't think the Senate version did as much 
to protect civil liberties and the rights of innocent Americans as we 
should have, but it was a move in the right direction. Regrettably, the 
conference report is nothing of the kind.
  I join Senator Sununu, who spoke eloquently about this earlier today, 
in saying that the conference report that will be before the Senate is 
not acceptable in its current form. The conference committee needs to 
go back to the drawing board and make the changes that are needed. The 
changes are very easy to find. They were contained in the unanimously 
approved Senate reauthorization bill.
  Clearly, there will be much more to say about this as the week goes 
on, but we are prepared to use whatever means we are allowed to use 
under the Senate rules to try to prevent this conference report from 
becoming law in its current form.

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