On why Senator Russ Feingold opposed the Patriot Act, “To pass this bill without even considering a single amendment to a document that exceeded two hundred pages of criminal, intelligence, and military-related provisions, when the bill had not been seriously reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, seemed tantamount to abandoning any semblance of a real legislative process. Equally troubling to me was that there would be no opportunity to call public attention to the serious constitutional problems with the bill, including the unnecessary breadth and sheer sloppiness of some of the provisions proposed. As chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee and someone who had sought to become a US senator so I could work to protect the integrity of the Constitution, I felt I had no choice but to try to prevent this error. As important as much of this bill was to making sure we had all the tools necessary to fight Al Qaeda and other terrorist threats, I felt I had to let people know what was being slipped through Congress. The only power I had left in order to keep my oath to uphold the Constitution was the right given to every senator on each piece of legislation: the power to object. So, on October 9, I filed an objection to the unanimous-consent request to vote on the bill in a few hours with no amendments.”
– Russ Feingold, While America Sleeps, Pages 155-156