Honorable Ron Wyden
United States Senator, Oregon, Democrat
Senator Wyden was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996. He serves on the Select Committee on Intelligence and is the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The following is excerpted from a July 23, 2013, speech at the Center for American Progress. When the PATRIOT Act was last reauthorized, I stood on the floor of the United States Senate and said: “I want to deliver a warning this afternoon. When the American people find out how their government has interpreted the PATRIOT Act, they are going to be stunned, and they are going to be…