Washington, D.C. – Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today praised the passage of the USA Freedom Act, which ensures the end of mass surveillance of Americans under the Patriot Act and brings new transparency to U.S. intelligence programs.

“It is not an exaggeration to say the passage of the USA Freedom Act is the most significant victory for Americans’ privacy rights in more than a decade, and stands as a true endorsement of the principle that Americans do not need to sacrifice their liberty to have security.

This program to collect the phone records of millions and millions of U.S. citizens was hatched in secret, depending on a secret interpretation of the law that Americans were not allowed to see. I have spent nearly a decade fighting mass surveillance, first working to bring this secret dragnet to light and then working to bring it to an end.

The fight to protect Americans’ constitutional rights against government overreach is not over. I’m committed to plugging the backdoor search loophole that the government uses to review Americans’ communications without a warrant, to beat back efforts to build security weaknesses into our electronic devices and to require the government to get a warrant before tracking Americans’ movements electronically. Everybody who has supported our fight for surveillance reform over the last two years is responsible for our victory today and I’m looking forward to joining all of you for more victories in the future.”

Wyden has led the Congressional fight against the secret collection of Americans’ phone and email records for nearly a decade.