Latest Ron Wyden Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• Americans don't want to hear the answers are privileged and off limits or they can't be provided in public or it would be inappropriate for witnesses to tell us what they know. We are talking about an attack on our democratic institutions and stonewalling of any kind is unacceptable. General Jeff Sessions acknowledged that there is no legal basis for this stonewalling.

  Ron Wyden

  Kind, Inappropriate, Democratic

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• I asked the former director James Comey about the FBI's intersections with Jeff Sessions prior to his stepping aside from the Russia investigation. Mr. Comey said his continued engagement with the Russian investigation was "problematic " and he said he could not discuss it in public.

  Ron Wyden

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• Right at the heart of the Affordable Care Act is the ban on insurance companies discriminating against people with a pre-existing condition. And this part of the Affordable Care Act makes sure that health care is not just for the healthy and wealthy.

  Ron Wyden

  Heart, People, Healthy

  Source: www.npr.org

• In order to do vigorous oversight, the leadership of the intelligence community has got to be straight with the American people and straight with the Congress. For there to be vigorous oversight, the intelligence community's got to be straight with the American people and the Congress and that has not been the case.

  Ron Wyden

  Order, People, Community

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• The combination of the growth of these digital technologies, the ability of the government to conjure up these secret interpretations, plus a very unusual and novel court make for this ever-expanding surveillance state. We so treasure our freedoms; we will regret it if our generation doesn't use this unique time to reform the surveillance laws and make it clear that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive. We can do both.

  Ron Wyden

  Regret, Unique, Technology

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• You have an always-expanding, omnipresent surveillance state that's constantly chipping away at the liberties and freedoms of law-abiding Americans.

  Ron Wyden

  Surveillance State, Law, Liberty

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• The government's collection authority, under the Patriot Act, is basically limitless. They can get the medical records and financial records, gun purchase records. And it also becomes part of another important issue that relates to the FISA court and the rest of the debate. It almost becomes a secret law, like there are two Patriot Acts. The one you read on the laptop essentially leads you to believe that there's some connection to terror .

  Ron Wyden

  Believe, Gun, Government

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• The ethics laws do not let us tap out the truth in Morse code.

  Ron Wyden

  Law, Ethics, Morse Code

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• You essentially have a human-relations database on millions of Americans. The administration said, "Well we're not listening to calls, we don't collect content." As [Vice President] Joe Biden said when he was a United States senator, you don't need to listen to those calls. If you have who somebody called, when and where, and you learned, for example, somebody called a psychiatrist three times in the last few days and twice after midnight, you know a lot about that person that they may not want people to know about them, especially the government.

  Ron Wyden

  Government, People, Listening

  "Stopping the 'Ever-Expanding Surveillance State'". Interview with Aj Vicens, www.motherjones.com. July 31, 2013.

• Part of what we're trying to do is lay out what really happened. For example, I've been trying to get across that the intelligence leadership did not just keep the country in the dark. They actively misled the country on key issues. When you have someone who heads the NSA saying we don't hold data at all on US citizens, that's one of the most misleading statements I believe that's ever been made about surveillance policy. And I think that now we're starting to get that message across.

  Ron Wyden

  Country, Believe, Dark

  "Stopping the 'Ever-Expanding Surveillance State'". Interview with Aj Vicens, www.motherjones.com. July 31, 2013.