Nearly a decade ago, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) stood alone as the Senate’s constitutional conscience. Casting the only dissenting vote against passage of the Patriot Act in 2001, he was powerless to stop an opportunistic power grab by neoconservatives who had long sought, well before the tragedy of 9-11, to expand our government’s reach into the lives of law-abiding Americans. (more…)