Russ Feingold: “On behalf of Senator Dodd, I wish to inform our colleagues that for health reasons Senator Dodd will necessarily be…”

“On behalf of Senator Dodd, I wish to inform our colleagues that for health reasons Senator Dodd will necessarily be absent from Senate business for the remainder of the week. He thanks his colleagues for their courtesy and understanding. Mr. President, I commend my colleagues who came to the floor yesterday to discuss the PATRIOT reauthorization, and I thank Chairman Specter for initiating a very interesting debate with me when we were both on the floor. That is exactly the kind of dialog we want to see on the floor more often. I hope we will see a lot more of it over the next few days. The PATRIOT Act reauthorization conference report has come to the Senate and the Senate will be faced with a very important choice. I expect this debate will be lengthy and hard fought, so I wanted to take some time tonight to lay out the background and the context for this debate, and to discuss my concerns about the conference report with some specificity. Because I was the only Senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act in 2001, I want to be very clear about something from the start. I am not--not--opposed to reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. I supported the bipartisan compromise reauthorization bill that the Senate passed earlier this year, that had no Senator at all objecting. I believe the bill should become law. The Senate reauthorization bill is not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill. If that were the bill we were considering today, I would be on the floor speaking in support of it.…”