PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill includes Feingold reform

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold successfully added an amendment to the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday to reform invasive “sneak and peek” searches. The “sneak and peek” provision of the PATRIOT Act allows the government in ordinary criminal cases to enter into someone’s home and perform a search without having to inform the subject of the search until weeks or months later. Sen. Feingold’s amendment changes the PATRIOT Act to require that the subjects of “sneak and peek” searches be notified of the search within seven days, unless a judge grants an extension because it is necessary to keep the search secret.

Sen. Feingold issued a statement on his amendment:

“Despite the fact that this authority was pushed as part of the Patriot Act in the wake of September 11, it is not about terrorism at all,” Feingold said. “A recent report on the use of these searches last year shows that the vast majority are conducted in drug cases, and almost none of them in terrorism cases. This is an extraordinary authority, to allow government agents to break into people’s homes without telling them, and I am pleased that the Judiciary Committee agreed to include this important safeguard.”

Despite the passage of his amendment to the PATRIOT Act, Sen. Feingold did express disappointment that protections for the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens didn’t go far enough in the version of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill in the Senate.