The Honorable Ron Wyden

Sen. Ron Wyden has spent his career pushing for smarter federal policy on technology, co-authoring pioneering tech laws, and standing up for Americans’ privacy in the face of government overreach.

Wyden co-authored Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provided the legal foundation for today’s social media, and led the fight against the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and its predecessor, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeit Act (COICA), put a spotlight on the problematic legislation being fast tracked through Congress and served as a rallying point for the historic Internet protests that ultimately toppled the bills.

Wyden has led the congressional fight against unnecessary and invasive government surveillance programs. He spent years warning of a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, which was eventually revealed to be the mass surveillance of Americans and succeeded in passing major reforms of NSA surveillance in 2015.