Ron Wyden News

What can you do with helium other than inflate balloons? If you're the Senate, apparently you can fund rural schools and the cleanup of old oil wells.

Robert Siegel talks to Sen. Mark Udall about the legislation he is co-sponsoring with Sen. Ron Wyden, to limit the federal government's ability to collect data on Americans without links to terrorism or espionage.

June 19 - Congress must intensify its scrutiny of National Security Agency programs to collect and review Americans' telephone records and Internet traffic, Common Cause said today.

The rhetoric about Eric Snowden's whistle blowing on the NSA's blanket internet surveillance has ripened during these past weeks since Snowden's revelations.

Revelations of the National Security Agency's sweeping collection of data on Americans require that Congress launch a grand inquest into the post-9/11 national security state.

Federal spy agencies would have to demonstrate a connection between Americans and terrorism before gathering data on those Americans' electronic communications, under legislation introduced Tuesday by U.S. Sen Mark Udall, D-Colo.

That's how many cases of sexual assault or unwanted sexual contact happen on average every single day in America's military.

The arrival from Japan one year ago of a massive, drifting dock at Agate Beach, near Newport, was, in the words of a state parks official, "like a 200-ton alarm clock."

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden used his chairmanship of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Tuesday to push through bills on wilderness areas and county timber payments.

President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence was flat-out lying when he told lawmakers in March the government wasn't collecting data on millions of Americans, Sen. Rand Paul asserted Tuesday.

A U. S. Senate committee has endorsed legislation to extend federal subsidies for timber counties one more year, and to protect more wilderness and wild rivers in Oregon.

President Obama has reportedly said at recent private fundraising events that he aims to unveil a comprehensive energy policy next month.

Prosecutors have asked a federal judge to delay sentencing for the Somali-American man convicted of plotting to bomb a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland's town square.

In the latest development of an ongoing legal battle, the Electronic Frontier Foundation finds itself on the frontlines of the battle for transparency on secret spy programs -- like the National Security Administration's PRISM -- that collect and monitor the communications of U.S. citizens.

One expert is waving a warning flag at the federal government's race to increase healthcare price transparency.

The civil libertarian Left and much of the public have reversed positions on phone monitoring since George W. Bush was president.

Debate over quality measures among Medicare's first accountable care organizations and federal officials will likely have significance for the 220 other accountable care efforts under Medicare, a former CMS administrator says.

30.03 Barometric Pressure - stable. Wind from East at 13 - under Hazy cloudy Skies.

Ron Wyden doesn't want to call the director of national intelligence a liar. The Oregon Democrat is too seasoned a politician for that -- and James Clapper's self-assessment, that he answered in the "least untruthful manner" when the senator asked whether the National Security Agency was collecting data about millions of Americans, speaks for ... (more)

Five months into his second term, allies and enemies are as confounded as ever about who President Obama really is.