Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) was the lone Senate vote against the passage of the Patriot Act. After it passed, he introduced a bill to "limit records searches by requiring the FBI to show that the documents pertain to a suspected terrorist or spy."

"The Patriot Act went too far when it comes to the government's access to personal information about law-abiding Americans," he said.

Check out his letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft about Ashcroft's decision to increase the number of federal death penalty prosecutions:

....I am concerned that your apparent determination to increase death penalty prosecutions, including sometimes overriding decisions of local prosecutors, increases the risk that the federal government could execute an innocent person. Former federal prosecutors have said that "they need to take every last precaution to avoid the risk of condemning an innocent person to death." See "In Brooklyn Murder Case, Doubts on Identification," New York Times, Feb. 12, 2003. While you and I may disagree on the fundamental question of whether the federal government should be authorized to use capital punishment, I hope that we can agree that the Constitution and the integrity of our criminal justice system require the fair administration of the death penalty and that only the guilty are convicted....

Sen Feingold introduced legislation to stop the Total Information Awareness Act (TIA) from being passed. He opposed the federal Victim's Rights Amendment to the Constitution, sponsored by Sens. Feinstein (D-CA) and Kyl (R-AZ).