Russ Feingold: “the first thing I want to say is that the Senator from Pennsylvania is not the problem here. Everything he has said is…”

“the first thing I want to say is that the Senator from Pennsylvania is not the problem here. Everything he has said is accurate. He fought tenaciously in the committee, and I think brilliantly, to bring us together in a balanced package. I say to the Senator, through the Presiding Officer, I am grateful for his efforts in the Judiciary Committee and the Senate as a whole, and for his efforts in the conference committee, because I know the Senator tried. What happened in the Senate was that the will of this body as a whole, which we all compromised on, prevailed. The Senator from Pennsylvania correctly points out that I had to give, unfortunately, on this national security letter issue, to get the important changes regarding library records, sneak-and-peek searches, and sunsets. The fact is, I say to the Senator that of course I objected to that provision. But I was trying to work with the Senator to come up with a balanced package, as Senator Sununu and I were commenting earlier, a package we could support as a whole. The Senator is now suggesting that after we made some gains and we lost some issues, I should now accept the one part we did not prevail on and give up the parts I did prevail on. That strikes me as a rather odd deal. It was, as the Senator knows, a very difficult vote for me to support the Senate package.…”