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@RonWyden As the longest serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I can say with confidence that this bill is the biggest expansion of the government's warrantless surveillance power since the PATRIOT Act. I'm still doing everything in my power to stop it passing the Senate.

Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden will block the nomination of a new director for the National Security Agency until the agency publicly discloses whether it is purchasing, storing and using electronic data on everyday Americans. Wyden has asked the agency to disclose this information since 2021, but he’s intensifying pressure in the lead up to a vote on nominating Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh to lead the NSA, as well as a key vote from Congress this week on whether to extend or reform a major foreign surveillance law set to expire at the end of the year. Wyden said the...

A much-hyped but yet-to-be-completed aviation biofuels refinery in southern Oregon appears to be headed for foreclosure after backers failed to make principal and interest payments on some $300 million in debt. Red Rock Biofuels launched efforts nearly a decade ago to build the cutting-edge facility in Lakeview but repeatedly ran into obstacles, even as project skeptics questioned its feasibility. The project has now accrued an additional $56 million in interest owed to private investors who bought bonds to fund the project, according to a four-page notice of sale first published Dec. 21 in the Lake County Examiner newspaper. The notice...

The FBI has obtained Pegasus spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group, which allows the agency to take complete control of a person’s phone without their knowledge. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has demanded answers from the FBI about how often it uses this invasive tool to hack Americans and whether the agency has gotten authorization from the courts to do so.“The American people have a right to know the scale of the FBI’s hacking activities and the rules that govern the use of this controversial surveillance technique,” Wyden said in a letter Tuesday to FBI Director Chris Wray.In particular, Wyden...

Oregon’s U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be awarding Oregon a total of $695,097 for sagebrush conservation efforts across the state. This funding will help support collaborative efforts by ranchers, growers, and agencies to improve habitat. “Restoring and conserving Oregon’s sagebrush ecosystems can help to address the damage and dangers invasive species bring to important rangelands and habitat to promote a healthy environment and a strong economy,” said Senator Merkley, who used his position as Chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee to secure this funding in the infrastructure law.

A group called East County Rising encouraging votes for Senator Ron Wyden, Con. Earl Blumenauer, Tina Kotek and many more, made the mistake of asking voters to vote on November 18th.We have sympathy for the one person who rushed this out too fast and overlooked the mistake — a mistake we have seen before in Oregon. The group East County Rising is a Political Action Committee that is funded by liberal organizations.

It is no mere coincidence that the once highly regarded FBI has become a malevolent force, a cancer on the body politic. Like any cancer, it needs to be cut out, and destroyed as an institution. Harsh words, but the shameful, partisan conduct of the FBI during the past 7 years conjurers up images of the Soviet’s KGB or East Germany’s Stasi. Let me be clear, especially for any FBI thugs monitoring me, I am calling for the lawful action of Congress to defund the Bureau and create a new, professional Federal police force. This is not a call for...

U.S. Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden is planning to introduce legislation setting a 21% surtax on oil company profits considered excessive, an aide for the senator told Reuters. The bill applies a 21% additional tax on the excess profits of oil and gas companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, the aide said. The 21% tax would be in addition to any regular income tax due. Profits over 10% would be considered excessive under the bill, according to the aide. Unlike other proposed windfall profit taxes, the aide said, Wyden's bill would apply the tax based on...

Several top Nike executives funneled more than $60,000 to the re-election campaign of Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden over the course of just 16 days in September. On Wednesday evening, Wyden blocked the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act which the House passed unanimously Tuesday and the Senate was expected to overwhelmingly approve. President Joe Biden vowed to sign the bill once passed by both chambers and work with Congress to “ensure global supply chains are free of forced labor,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. Nike, a major benefactor of Wyden, was one of several corporations...

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has struck a gentlemen’s agreement with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) to allow a vote on his trade deal with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as an amendment to a China competitiveness bill. The amendment has a good chance of passing, and the breakthrough between Schumer and Crapo means there’s now a chance the competitiveness bill, which has been renamed the Innovation and Competition Act, could pass Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Quitting government service under fire for the second time, John M. Poindexter says he hopes Congress will save the less controversial parts of his much-criticized research project designed to predict terrorist attacks. The more controversial elements Poindexter's project - developing a futures market on Mideast developments and scanning public and private databases loaded with personal information about innocent Americans - drew a hail of criticism from privacy advocates and politicians in both parties. Poindexter said the project had been misrepresented and misunderstood. "I regret that we have not been able to ... reassure the public that we...

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) is preparing legislation to expand production of semiconductors only weeks after his family members purchased stock in semiconductor tool manufacturers. Wyden and two other Democrat senators released a statement to announce they were working on legislation to “expand production of critical technologies like semiconductors, batteries and solar components” in the name of “economic recovery.” ‘By building on tools with records of success, we can also boost manufacturing in communities that have been left behind. We are working on new legislation that would expand production of critical technologies like semiconductors, batteries and solar components....

Election tech company Dominion Voting Systems is rebutting assorted claims of partisan bias and voting manipulation in the 2020 election, including rumors of a secret U.S. military raid on purported servers in Germany and ownership interests and other influence in the firm by prominent Democratic families. At the same time, Dominion has confirmed reports it made a donation to the Clinton Foundation and hired a former Nancy Pelosi staffer as a lobbyist. Dominion has been at the center of a firestorm since Nov. 3, when its election management software, which is widely used across the country, led to an unofficial...

The actions of Dominion Voting are all over conservative news outlets right now. But not long ago Dominion was the subject of Democrat Senators Warren, Klobuchar and Wyden. In 2019 Senators Warren, Klobuchar and Wyden were upset about Dominion voting. They were so upset that they sent them a letter. see letters

Though Twitter has a lengthy record of permitting leftists to post blatant lies and evidence-free accusations, this week it took issue with President Trump’s tweet warning of the risk of vote-fraud in vote-by-mail elections. Twitter alleged that a “fact check” shows that vote-fraud is nonexistent. It seems that the so-called fact check relied solely on repeated assertions from Democrats that vote-fraud does not exist to any serious extent. As it turns out, the assertion that vote-fraud is not a serious problem is itself a false statement. Back in 2005 a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former President...

A top Democratic senator discouraged the Justice Department and FBI from complying with a Republican demand for information about a former Democratic National Committee contractor. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden warned that complying with the records request related to Alexandra Chalupa, who is alleged to have sought dirt from Ukraine to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election, would have dangerous consequences. As Chalupa conducted research on Paul Manafort, who did lobbying work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarchs and later became Trump's campaign manager, the Ukrainian American activist began receiving notifications from Yahoo security that claimed she was the victim...

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) posted a video Saturday bragging about how he had escorted an eight-and-a-half months pregnant migrant from Mexico into the U.S. because the woman allegedly was having a difficult pregnancy. Wyden does not tell viewers that the woman is a Mexican citizen and that she brought her husband and 3-year-old son with her across the border. Apparently there are no competent maternity hospitals in Mexico.

The Democratic competition to bleed the rich has become fierce. If progressives aren’t satisfied with Elizabeth Warren’s proposed “wealth tax” of 3% a year, AOC’s 70% income tax, Bernie Sanders’s 77% estate tax, or Rep. John Larson’s uncapped payroll-tax increase of 2.4 percentage points, they now have a fifth option. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden wants to tax capital gains as regular income, meaning rates up to 37%. He would also tax unrealized gains, perhaps decades before the investor sells. Mr. Wyden hasn’t released a formal plan, so the details are sketchy. Under current law, long-term capital gains are taxed at...

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Tuesday that he will put forth a proposal to ensure that wealthy individuals are paying their "fair share" of taxes, amid a debate among Democrats about how best to tax the rich. Wyden announced that he will put forward a white paper that calls for taxing the capital gains of wealthy individuals' investments annually, as opposed to when the investments are sold under current law. Such an approach is known as "mark-to-market." Wyden would also tax the capital gains at the same rates as other income, while capital gains are currently...

WASHINGTON—The top Democrat on the Senate’s tax-writing committee wants to tax long-term investments like other types of income, raising rates and requiring the wealthiest people to pay taxes on their unrealized gains each year. The plan from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is the latest proposal from Democrats in Congress and on the presidential-campaign trail to boost taxes on the wealthy in a bid to address what they view as the problems of economic inequality and provide a funding stream to pay for new programs. While the specific proposal has little chance to become law anytime soon, such ideas could...