Ron Wyden Is Pissing Off the NSA’s Biggest Backers. Tom Cotton Warns There Will Be “Consequences.”
Ron Wyden Is Pissing Off the NSA’s Biggest Backers. Tom Cotton Warns There Will Be “Consequences.”
Ron Wyden Is Pissing Off the NSA’s Biggest Backers. Tom Cotton Warns There Will Be “Consequences.”
Debate over a secret court opinion involving the Trump administration’s use of data collected by the NSA turned personal.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., keeps getting under the skin of the NSA’s biggest supporters with his warnings about intelligence agency abuses — and the latest dispute resulted in a high-profile dustup on the Senate floor on Thursday.
Wyden said the public needs to know about a secret court opinion that found fault with the Trump administration’s use of data collected by the National Security Agency, prompting Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to warn of “consequences” for “distorting highly classified material.”
The unusually pointed back-and-forth came amid a fight over the reauthorization of a controversial domestic spying program. The barbs exchanged by the senators highlighted how much Wyden has angered colleagues aligned with the NSA who want the spy program to be renewed without changes.
By the end of the day, Congress voted to give the program a 45-day extension to allow further negotiations over its fate.