Senator Wyden: US to become an irreversible surveillance state

US Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, warned US citizens that they would live to regret for being inactive on surveillance reform. In a speech at the Center for American Progress, Wyden said, the time is now to enact the changes to preserve democracy, and added, “If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we are all going to live to regret it”. His speech was just before the voting scheduled for Wednesday to block the NSA phone records program. Wyden said “the combination of increasingly advanced technology with a breakdown in the checks and balances that limit government action could lead us to a surveillance state that cannot be reversed”. Wyden has been defined as a defender of privacy and civil liberties and he had been among ten senators warning that the government was secretly interpreting its powers under the Patriot Act.