feingold

Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning, Attorney General Eric Holder promised to produce the evidence, withheld by the Department of Justice, that some Democratic Senators believe is necessary for an informed debate on the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act.
As I reported yesterday, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Richard [...]

I just spoke to Kevin Bankston, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s senior attorney specializing in free speech and privacy law, about his reaction to today’s Senate Judiciary Committee markup session on the Patriot Act, which resulted in passage of the Leahy-Feinstein bill, with a few amendments. Bankston, who’s been following this debate closely, was not pleased.
“We’re [...]

The Leahy-Feinstein substitute bill I discussed in my piece this morning about the USA PATRIOT Act was just approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee 13-8, with only minor word changes.
Amendments proposed by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) that would have required that the target of a National Security Letter have some alleged connection to terrorism, and [...]

Most of the senators on the Judiciary Committee today seem to be bending over backwards to give the FBI and Justice Department every benefit of the doubt when it comes to the tools they say they need to fight terrorism. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) just warned of all the people out there “that are trying [...]

Republicans and Democrats have been sniping about the USA Patriot Act ever since Congress passed the law in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks to try to forestall another such disaster.

Though the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week included lots of expressed concern that the USA Patriot Act compromises civil liberties, the version of the bill being debated in that committee today fails to adequately address the problems, argues Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and  the American Civil Liberties Union.
According to the ACLU, the committee substituted [...]

Here’s their joint statement released following this morning’s Supreme Court argument in Citizens United v. FEC:
It is important to note that the case reargued today does not affect the core of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law – the ban on large, unregulated donations to the political parties by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals. Nonetheless, at [...]

Responding to the controversial assertion by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair on June 8 that warrantless wiretapping “wasn’t illegal,” Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) today sent a letter to President Obama asking him to make clear that he is not claiming that extraordinary executive authority to disregard the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
“As a [...]

The Secrecy News Blog, published by the Federation of American Scientists, notes that Attorney General Eric Holder has made some promising statements on the issue of government secrecy.
In response to questions from Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Holder wrote:
I will review significant pending cases in which DOJ has invoked the state secrets privilege, and will work [...]

In addition to Guantanamo Bay and torture, the big topics of the day seems to be warrant-less surveillance and Federal Intelligence and Surveillance Act and nailing Eric Holder down on whether or not he’ll break from the recent history of the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) spoke briefly of his past [...]