Senator Feingold - the lone ‘no’ vote on Patriot Act

[kpete]

Feingold book details his lone ‘no’ vote on Patriot Act
DAVID L. HUDSON JR.
FIRST AMENDMENT SCHOLAR
Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, shocked and scarred the country. A mere 45 days after the attacks, President George W. Bush signed into law the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism — better known by its acronym, the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

On Oct. 25, 2001, the U.S. Senate had passed the measure by a whopping vote of 98-1. The lone voice of dissent was Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold. In his new book, While America Sleeps (Crown Publishers, 2012), Feingold gives his account of the Patriot Act passage and why he opposed it.

“This was legislation on the fly, unlike anything I had ever seen in a career of some eighteen years of legislation,” he writes, referring to the law as a “piece of legislative greased lighting.”



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Feingold explains the amendments he offered that he thought were more measured responses to the terror threat — to no avail. He still maintains that the legislative approach that led to the Patriot Act did not include necessary “oversight.”

http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/feingold-book-details-his-lone-no-vote-on-patriot-act


and they renewed it again AND again
CHECK THIS OUT:
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/05/26/senate-democrats-for-the-patriot-act-may-26/
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Russ Feingold Calls NSA Report "Deeply Troubling"
By Emma Roller | Posted Thursday, June 6, 2013, at 3:02 PM

In 2001, I first voted against the PATRIOT Act because much of it was simply an FBI wish list that included provisions allowing our government to go on fishing expeditions that collect information on virtually anyone.

Today's report indicates that the government could be using FISA in an indiscriminate way that does not balance our legitimate concerns of national security with the necessity to preserve our fundamental civil rights. This is deeply troubling. I hope today's news will renew a serious conversation about how to protect the country while ensuring that the rights of law-abiding Americans are not violated.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/06/06/russ_feingold_nsa_report_deeply_troubling.html

[orpupilofnature57]

1. And that was the beginning of this end .