--- title: Senator Bernie Sanders: Rewrite Patriot Act to Protect Privacy description: I voted against the Patriot Act every time, and it still needs major reform. canonical: https://time.com/3850839/bernie-sanders-usa-patriot-act/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-07T19:27:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:04:05.955Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Bernie Sanders: It's Time To End Orwellian Surveillance of Every American og:description: I voted against the Patriot Act every time, and it still needs major reform. og:url: https://time.com/3850839/bernie-sanders-usa-patriot-act/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95ccc65f044aacb0/6987eed45f570f71efb1982f/bernie-sanders.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4514 og:image:height: 2539 og:image:alt: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a town hall meeting at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 26 office May 5, 2015 in Lanham, Maryland. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bernie Sanders: It's Time To End Orwellian Surveillance of Every American twitter:description: I voted against the Patriot Act every time, and it still needs major reform. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95ccc65f044aacb0/6987eed45f570f71efb1982f/bernie-sanders.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bernie Sanders: It's Time To End Orwellian Surveillance of Every American > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Sen. Bernie Sanders](https://time.com/author/senator-bernie-sanders/) ## Sen. Bernie Sanders May 7, 2015 7:27 PM UTC  U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a town hall meeting at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 26 office May 5, 2015 in Lanham, Maryland. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a town hall meeting at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 26 office May 5, 2015 in Lanham, Maryland. Drew Angerer—Getty Images by [Sen. Bernie Sanders](https://time.com/author/senator-bernie-sanders/) ## Sen. Bernie Sanders May 7, 2015 7:27 PM UTC I welcome a federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency does not have the legal authority to collect and store data on all U.S. telephone calls. Now Congress should rewrite the expiring eavesdropping provision in the so-called USA Patriot Act and include strong new limits to protect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. Let me be clear: We must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack. We can and must do so, however, in a way that also protects the constitutional rights of the American people and maintains our free society. Do we really want to live in a country where the NSA gathers data on virtually every single phone call in the United States—including as many as 5 billion cellphone records per day? I don’t. Do we really want our government to collect our emails, see our text messages, know everyone’s Internet browsing history, monitor bank and credit card transactions, keep tabs on people’s social networks? I don’t. Unfortunately, this sort of Orwellian surveillance, conducted under provisions of the Patriot Act, invades the privacy of millions of law-abiding Americans. ### Drone Country: See America From Above  House boats appear next to the shoreline of Bidwell Canyon on Lake Oroville in Northern California on November 25, 2014\. Lake Oroville is California's second largest reservoir, and is currently 70% empty as a result of the state's severe drought. Tomas van Houtryve—VII  Campers appear in an RV park in Fernley, Nevada on November 25, 2014\. The nearby Amazon Fulfillment Center recruits people living out of RVs to work on the floor of their warehouse during peak holiday shipping season. Many of the campers are senior citizens whose homes or savings were wiped out by the 2008 economic crisis. Tomas van Houtryve—VII  A parking lot for an Amazon fulfillment center appears in New Jersey on November 11, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  A residential apartment complex appears in Poughkeepsie, New York on November 9, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  Vacation homes appear on the New Jersey Shore on November 11, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  An empty drive-in movie theater appears in Poughkeepsie, New York on November 9, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  A farm house and field appear outside Trenton, New Jersey on November 11, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  Cows gather for water and alfalfa distributed by a rancher in a drought-devastated pasture in Merced County, California on November 26, 2014\. As with many areas of the Central Valley of California, these cows would not be able to survive without this kind of supplemental nutrition. Tomas van Houtryve—VII  A run-down neighborhood appears in North Camden, New Jersey on November 23, 2014\. In 2012, the FBI ranked Camden as having the most violent crime per capita of any American city with a population of over 50,000\. The local police installed millions of dollars of surveillance equipment in residential neighborhoods, including cameras and microphones that detect the exact location of gunshots. Tomas van Houtryve—VII  Horse stalls appear near Fernley, Nevada on November 24, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII  A swamp appears near Brookfield, Connecticut on November 8, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  Beachfront vacation units appear on Cape Cod, Massachusetts on Nov. 7, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  The USS New Jersey, a decommissioned battleship, appears on the Delaware river off Camden, New Jersey on November 23, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII  A college campus appears in Poughkeepsie, New York on November 9, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  Lacrosse players warm up before practice in Clark County, Nevada on January 20, 2014\. The nearby Creech Air Force is the main command center for overseas drone strikes. Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center  Wiggins Park Marina appears in Camden, New Jersey on November 23, 2014. Tomas van Houtryve—VII The surveillance law originally was passed by Congress in 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I voted against it. I voted against reauthorizing the law in 2005 when I was still in the House and voted “no” again in 2011 in the Senate when Congress passed the most-recent four-year extension of the law. I believed then and am even more convinced today that the law gave the government far too much power to spy on Americans and that it provided too little oversight or disclosure. The law expires at the end of this month, and Congress already has begun to debate how to revise and improve the law. We should give intelligence and law enforcement authorities the strong tools they need to investigate suspected terrorists, but the law also must contain strong safeguards to protect our civil liberties. Under legislation I have proposed, intelligence and law enforcement authorities would be required to establish a reasonable suspicion, based on specific information, in order to secure court approval to monitor business records related to a specific terrorism suspect. In renewing the surveillance law, Congress also should reassert its proper role overseeing how intelligence agencies use, or abuse, the law that our intelligence community has operated in a way that even they knew the American public and Congress would not approve. We should strike a balance that weighs the need to be vigilant and aggressive in protecting the American people from the very real danger of terrorist attacks without undermining the constitutional rights that make us a free country. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3850839/bernie-sanders-usa-patriot-act/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3850839/bernie-sanders-usa-patriot-act/"},"headline":"Bernie Sanders: It's Time To End Orwellian Surveillance of Every American","datePublished":"2015-05-07T19:27:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:04:05.955Z","description":"I voted against the Patriot Act every time, and it still needs major reform.","url":"https://time.com/3850839/bernie-sanders-usa-patriot-act/","keywords":["politics"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95ccc65f044aacb0/6987eed45f570f71efb1982f/bernie-sanders.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sen. 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