Sanders opposes NSA reform bill

by Jordain Carney - 06/02/15 12:27 PM ET

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Tuesday that he will oppose the USA Freedom Act, suggesting that the legislation doesn’t go far enough to protect privacy.

“We must keep our country safe and protect ourselves from terrorists, but we can do that without undermining the constitutional and privacy rights which make us a free nation,” Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement.

{mosads}He added that while the measure would be an improvement over the Patriot Act, “there are still too many opportunities for the government to collect information on innocent people.”

Sanders was one of 14 senators to vote against ending debate on the USA Freedom Act earlier Tuesday.

The bill would renew provisions of the Patriot Act that expired at midnight Sunday. It would also phase out the National Security Agency’s (NSA) bulk collection of phone records, and instead have those records held by private companies.

But Sanders suggested that his concerns are not limited to the government collecting phone records, saying “this is not just the government.”

“It’s corporate America too,” he said.

“Technology has significantly outpaced public policy. There is a huge amount of information being collected on our individual lives ranging from where we go to the books we buy and the magazines we read. We need to have a discussion about that.”

Sanders added that he plans to introduce legislation to start a commission to study the impact of technology on data collection and privacy.

His comments on Tuesday are a shift from remarks he made over the weekend.

“I may well be voting for it. It does not go as far as I would like it to go,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. “But we have to look at the best of bad situations.”

Tags Bernie Sanders