WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement ahead of a vote in the Senate Tuesday to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act:

“Clearly, we must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack, but we can and must do so in a way that protects the constitutional rights of the American people. We can do that without living in an Orwellian world where the government and private corporations know every telephone call we make, every website we visit and every place we go.

“Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows warrantless searches of Americans’ calls, emails, texts and other communications collected under a program designed to spy on foreign targets, should not be reauthorized without a number of common sense fixes to protect Americans’ privacy, such as those contained in the USA RIGHTS Act. The bill as written gives the government far too much power to spy on innocent U.S. citizens. I will vote no.”