Byrd Sorry he ever voted for Patriot Act

: "Sen. Robert Byrd, the dean of the Senate and its resident constitutional expert, counts only a few regrets in his 48-year Senate career: filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act, voting to expand the Vietnam War, deregulating airlines. Add to the list a new one from this century: supporting the anti-terror USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 'The original Patriot Act is a case study in the perils of speed, herd instinct and lack of vigilance when it comes to legislating in times of crisis,' the West Virginia Democrat said Monday on the eve of the Senate's final votes on its renewal. 'The Congress was stampeded, and the values of freedom, justice and equality received a trampling in the headlong rush.' This week as he embarks on a re-election campaign for a record ninth term, Byrd, 88, will vote 'no' on renewing 16 major provisions of the act due to expire March 10. He argues that even with new privacy protections added this year by the Bush administration and its allies, the law has given the government too much power to pry. 'This new proposal would erase too many of our freedoms guaranteed to the American people,' Byrd added in a statement to The Associated Press. 'In essence, this legislation says that the Bill of Rights is right no more.' His position allies him with Sen. Russell Feingold, a relative Senate newcomer who nonetheless foresaw potential problems with the original Patriot Act before Byrd or any other member of the Senate. In 2001, Feingold, D-Wis., cast the lone vote against the new terror-fighting law. 'I wish I had voted as he did,' Byrd lamented on the Senate floor."