With NSA revelations, Sen. Ron Wyden’s vague warnings about privacy finally become clear

It was one of the strangest personal crusades on Capitol Hill: For years, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said he was worried that intelligence agencies were violating Americans’ privacy. But he couldn’t say how. That was a secret.

Wyden’s outrage, he said, stemmed from top-secret information he had learned as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But Sen Wyden was bound by secrecy rules, unable to reveal what he knew. Everything but his unhappiness had to be classified. So Wyden stuck to speeches that were dire but vague. And often ignored. The revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden — detailing vast domestic surveillance programs that vacuumed up data on phone calls, e-mails and other electronic communications — have filled in the details of Wyden’s concerns. So he was right. But that is not the same as winning.