President Obama on Friday addressed mounting concern about the National Security Agency tapping into data on millions of Americans’ telephone calls and emails. “I appreciate the president’s willingness to examine this important issue but I think that his remarks did not go far enough,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. On another front, Sanders welcomed Obama’s consideration of using his executive powers to reward federal contracts who pay workers at least a $10.10 an hour minimum wage. A group of senators on Thursday asked broadcast television network executives why their Sunday news and interview programs have largely ignored global warming. And the Senate on Thursday advanced a Sanders bill to expand veterans’ benefits.

NSA Spying Speaking at the Department of Justice headquarters, Obama opted to leave the massive records on telephone calls made by millions of Americans under the control of the National Security Agency. Some of his own advisers had urged him to put the data in the hands of telecommunications firms or an independent third party to be tapped only with permission of a judge. “There is no question in my mind that the collection of data on every phone call made in the United States is unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourth Amendment and that the government has engaged in massive violations of civil liberties and privacy rights,” Sanders said in a statement after the speech and in an interview with Wolf Blitzer. Read the statement, Watch CNN

What Global Warming? Sanders and other members of a new congressional task force on climate change took network television bosses to task on Thursday over their lack of coverage on global warming last year. They cited a Media Matters for America report that during all of 2013 the influential network Sunday news shows spent a scant 27 minutes to the topic. Read the senators’ letter 

Minimum Wage President Obama indicated at a White House meeting with senators on Wednesday that he is seriously considering raising the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors by executive order. "They are taking a hard look at it,” Sanders told The Washington Post. “My own belief is that if they go forward, it will have a very significant positive impact on the debate to raise the minimum wage for all American workers to at least $10.10." Read more in The Washington Post

Welfare for Wal-Mart " Wal-mart pays its employees so little that many of the low-wage workers must rely on food stamps to feed their families and Medicaid to pay doctors when their children get sick. “Do you think the wealthiest family in this country should have large numbers of employees that depend on Medicaid,” Sanders asked at a Joint Economic Committee hearing Thursday. “That is corporate welfare of the worst kind,” said Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. The hearing was called to look at the economic impact of raising the federal minimum wage. Sanders is cosponsor of a bill that would boost the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from the current level of $7.25.Watch Sanders at the Joint Economic Committee hearing

Net Neutrality A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Federal Communications Commission rules that prohibit Internet service providers from restricting access to legal Web content. The ruling is the latest development in the long-running battle over net neutrality. The ruling disappointed Sanders who feared “that the result will be an Internet no longer open to the free exchange of ideas and content. Whether you are rich, poor, young or old, the Internet allows all people to seek out information and communicate globally. We must not allow corporate interests to disrupt this free flow of ideas.” Read more

Trade Deal Disaster Sanders and 11 other senators on Thursday wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to oppose renewing “fast-track” authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. “I think this idea of fast-track is a disaster,” Sanders told Ed Schultz. Trade deals have shipped jobs overseas to low-wage countries and put Americans out of workand explain why more than 62,000 factories have been shuttered in the United States, Sanders said Republicans pushing for a massive free trade agreement that would threaten American jobs “better look at their grassroots supporters, not just at their corporate campaign contributors.” Watch MSNBC

Veterans An omnibus Veterans benefits bill by Sanders would repeal cuts in military retirees’ pensions. The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman said during remarks on the Senate floor Thursday that his package includes other provisions to expand health care, education and other benefits. It “delivers on the promises that we have made to our service members,” Sanders said of the legislation that he said would be the “most significant veterans bill passed in several decades.”