Senators Durbin and Feingold on Obama's PATRIOT Act reforms

Statement of U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold on the Administration's Willingness to Consider PATRIOT Act Reforms

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Washington, D.C. – The Department of Justice has responded to a letter from U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Russ Feingold (D-WI), in which the Senators asked the Attorney General to consider bipartisan reforms to the USA PATRIOT Act that they have proposed, and which were supported by President Obama when he was in the Senate. In its response, the Department of Justice indicated willingness to consider reforms to the USA PATRIOT Act. Senators Feingold and Durbin, who plan to introduce legislation soon, released the following statement after receiving the response:

“We welcome the administration’s willingness to consider additional safeguards for surveillance powers that have been vastly expanded in recent years. Congress should revise the USA PATRIOT Act and related authorities to better protect the constitutional rights of American citizens, while preserving the powers of our government to fight terrorism. After the Inspector General reports documenting rampant misuse of National Security Letters, there can no longer be any doubt that granting overbroad authority leads to abuses. We must take this opportunity to get it right, once and for all. And we must be able to have a meaningful public debate so that the American people and their representatives in Congress can understand how these authorities have actually been used and make informed decisions about how they should be used in the future.”

The Durbin-Feingold letter, originally sent on August 6th, is available here. More information on the fixes Feingold and Durbin are seeking is available here.