Issue Position: Rights and Freedoms

Issue Position

"The freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are the most fundamental rights that we hold as Americans. Our country was founded on the principle of freedom for all people. The rights of all individuals should be vigorously upheld regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation.

The Framers who wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights had recently fought and won the Revolutionary War. They did not live in comfortable and easy times of hypothetical enemies. They wrote a Constitution of limited powers and an explicit Bill of Rights to protect liberty in times of war, as well as in times of peace.

As Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, I've worked to help ensure that in our pursuit of justice we do not compromise the very freedom and way of life that we seek to protect. Upholding the rights of all citizens has proven to be a struggle throughout our history, but nothing worthwhile is achieved without a struggle."

- Senator Russ Feingold

USA PATRIOT Act -- Russ was the only senator to vote against the USA PATRIOT Act because it included provisions that threatened the rights of law-abiding Americans. Russ supported those portions of the Patriot Act that brought our anti-terrorism laws in line with new technologies of the 21st century, but he could not support the final legislation when changes he proposed to protect innocent Americans were not adopted. While his was the lone vote against the measure in the U.S. Senate, a growing number of his colleagues and millions of Americans in Wisconsin and across the country agree that many of the troubling provisions that were passed in haste in 2001 still need to be fixed. We must give the government the tools it needs to protect us from future terrorist attacks, but we can and should do so without jeopardizing the individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution -- the very principles that make this country great.

Russ is the lead sponsor of comprehensive legislation, the JUSTICE Act, to fix the Patriot Act once and for all. Among the changes that Russ has proposed are:

* Protecting Personal Records: Currently, the federal government can obtain sensitive personal information about Americans from medical offices, libraries, book stores, and other businesses, without proper oversight. Russ's bill would force the federal government to at the very least specify why it believes the person whose records it is seeking has some connection to a suspected terrorist or spy. Russ's legislation would still allow the government to follow up on legitimate leads while also protecting the privacy of law-abiding Americans.

* Revising the "Sneak and Peek" Provisions: Under the Patriot Act, the federal government has the authority to break into someone's house and search it without telling that person until weeks or even months later. Russ's bill still allows for this "delayed notification' of search warrants, but it requires notification within a reasonable 7-day period, with extensions in certain limited circumstances. It also ensures that this extraordinary authority is only available in limited circumstances and not in virtually any criminal case. * Safeguards for National Security Letters (NSLs): The Patriot Act dramatically expanded the FBI's authority to use NSLs to obtain Americans' communications and financial records with no judicial oversight whatsoever -- including the records of innocent Americans with no connection to a national security threat. In a series of reports starting in 2007, the Justice Department's own Inspector General documented rampant abuse of the NSL authority -- misuse that can be directly attributed to the overbroad powers granted by the Patriot Act. Russ's legislation -- both the JUSTICE Act and the bipartisan NSL Reform Act -- would stop these abuses from happening in the future.

Protecting Privacy -- Russ has been recognized as a leading defender of the Constitution for his efforts to defend the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans. The Bush Administration did considerable damage to the rule of law, and Senator Feingold has called on President Obama to help return our country to the rule of law.

Russ took the lead in criticizing, and ultimately ending, the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The Bush Administration claimed the legal authority to wiretap ordinary Americans, on American soil, all without a court order, and Russ fought to reject that extreme legal theory.

Russ has pushed legislation called the OLC Reporting Act, which would require the Attorney General to report to Congress when the Department of Justice issues a legal opinion concluding that the executive branch is not bound by a particular law. During the Bush Administration, the Justice Department effectively issued secret laws -- opinions stating that the president and his administration didn't have to follow certain laws that Congress had passed -- but for years neither the public nor most members of Congress were aware that the Department had come to that conclusion. These overreaching claims by the Bush Administration have been described in court opinions as "repugnant" and "an abomination" and Russ's bill would, at the very least, require Congress to be notified when the executive branch claims it need not follow current law.

Russ also successfully pushed for legislation that provides greater oversight of government data mining programs, which have the potential to threaten Americans' privacy rights. Russ's Federal Data Mining Reporting Act now requires federal agencies to report to Congress on the existence of current data mining programs, as well as those programs that are currently under development.

Ending Racial Profiling - Russ has taken the lead in seeking to end the abusive practice of racial profiling. Along with Michigan Representative John Conyers, Russ has introduced legislation that would make racial profiling unlawful and provide incentives for law enforcement agencies to properly train their officers. While most law enforcement officials do not engage in this practice, those who do should be held accountable.

Abolishing the Death Penalty - Russ is the leading opponent of the death penalty in the Senate, and believes that the death penalty at the federal and state levels is flawed and should be abolished.

Over one thousand people have been executed in the era of the modern death penalty, while 12% of those sentenced to death have been exonerated. Defendants' likelihood of being sentenced to death depends heavily on whether they are rich or poor, and what race their victims were. And years of study have shown that the death penalty does little to deter crime.

The facts prove that innocent people end up on death row, and we cannot tolerate errors when the government is imposing such a final penalty. Russ has spoken out repeatedly in opposition to the death p enalty, and has introduced legislation that would abolish the death penalty at the federal level. The current system risks executing the innocent, and we can punish serious offenders by sentencing them to life without parole.

Protecting the Right to Vote -- After the 2000 election, Russ supported the Help America Vote Act that established federal voting standards and provided resources to states to help ensure that all Americans, no matter where they live, have fair and equal access to polling places. He will continue to monitor the law's implementation to try to ensure that no voter is disenfranchised. He also supports the "District of Columbia Voting Rights Act," which would give the residents of the District of Columbia full voting representation in the House of Representatives.

Russ is the lead Senate sponsor of the Same Day Registration Act, to require all states to offer voter registration at the polls, just as Wisconsin and several other states already do. States that allow registration on same day as voting have the highest turnout in the country, and Russ believes government should do everything possible to reduce obstacles to citizens' exercising their fundamental right to vote. Same day registration also helps curb fraud since voters would be present to both register and vote.

Russ has also authored legislation, the Democracy Restoration Act, to restore the voting rights of convicted felons who have served their time and paid their debt to society. Nearly four million citizens who are no longer in prison, including two million who have completed their sentences including probation and parole, cannot vote because of a conviction in their past. Russ believes that restoring voting rights is a matter of simple justice, and a crucial component of helping ex-offenders become productive members of society.

Russ also is an original cosponsor of the Caging Prohibition Act, which would prohibit state and local election officials from disenfranchising voters solely based on manufactured evidence such as caging or unverified match lists, or records that their home has been foreclosed on.

Russ also supports the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act, which would make it illegal for anyone to knowingly attempt to stop citizens from exercising their right to vote and would encourage the attorney general to fully investigate any allegations of misconduct.

Fighting "Redlining" - Russ authored legislation that prevents insurance companies from "redlining" certain communities. Redlining is a form of institutional racism that prevents people from realizing the American dream of owning their own home by restricting access to homeowner's insurance in targeted areas. As a Wisconsin State Senator, Senator Feingold authored a bill to establish a Wisconsin Community Reinvestment Act to ensure that financial institutions provide services to city residents and business in their surrounding area.

Ending Discrimination - Russ successfully fought efforts to strip the government of its authority to investigate illegal property insurance discrimination. And he has championed efforts to end discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

Supporting Minority Businesses - Russ has always fought to give minorities a fair chance, including in the 2005 highway funding bill, where he supported affirmative action policies to expand the applicant pool, encourage participation by businesses owned by minorities, and recruit qualified minorities into the applicant pool, encourage contractors to request bids from businesses owned by minorities and include qualified minorities in an applicant pool for transportation contracts.

Native Americans - While Russ is committed to achieving a balanced budget, he believes it is possible to do so without undermining important programs that provide essential services. For this reason he has opposed efforts to reduce funding for Native American programs. We have a responsibility to meet the federal government's legal trust obligation to the tribes, and Russ recognizes how important these funds are to Wisconsin.

Marriage Equality - America was founded on the principle of freedom for all people. Russ has opposed and will continue to fight efforts to write discrimination into the Constitution by passing an amendment banning same-sex marriage. All Americans should stand up and say no to the federal marriage amendment, no to discrimination targeted at many of our citizens, and no to these sorts of narrow-minded attempts to score political points. The last thing we should do is play politics with the Constitution, or with the lives of gay and lesbian Americans.

Supporting the Second Amendment -- The Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, has meaning today and must be respected. Russ has been a consistent, strong supporter of the Second Amendment throughout his career. He opposed renewal of the assault weapons ban and supported the 2008 Supreme Court decision overturning the Washington, D.C. law prohibiting the sale or possession of handguns and semiautomatic weapons and limiting the possession of certain types of gun ammunition. He also supported the recent Supreme Court decision confirming that Second Amendment rights cannot be infringed on by the states. Gun ownership is an important part of our history here in Wisconsin, and law-abiding individuals should be able to own firearms as set forth in our Constitution.

Feingold has supported reasonable measures that do not infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and use guns such as:

* The Brady Bill, requiring background checks of gun purchasers

* Closing the gun show loophole that unacceptably increases the danger that a gun will fall into the hands of a criminal

* Child safety locks and other measures to make firearms less dangerous to gun owners and their families

* Requiring the gun industry, like other industries, to maintain its duty of reasonable care to its customers

Recognition of Feingold's Record -- Russ has been recognized by groups such as the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Friends of Libraries, the American Library Association, the Arab-American Discrimination Committee, and the Backbone Campaign for his support of civil rights and for his willingness to stand up and fight for our freedoms. He has received stellar ratings from the NAACP for his voting record ever since he was first elected in 1992. And the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda has given Senator Feingold a perfect 100% rating for his commitment to racial equality.

Source