In other words, as we now know, the spymasters lie—not only to us, in public, but to their supposed overseers on the Hill. That sense—that executive-branch officials weren't telling the truth—led to Wyden's now famous question to James Clapper, director of national intelligence, in an open Senate hearing last March:

“Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

Clapper responded: "No, sir ... not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

Only after the Snowden revelations did Clapper admit his answer was “erroneous,” or “the least untruthful” one he could provide. And Wyden recently said, “There's not a shred of evidence today that that would have been corrected [in public] absent the [Snowden] disclosures.”

Former NSA Counsel Joel Brenner accused Wyden of “vicious tactic[s],” suggesting that he had “sandbagged” the director. But Wyden did not catch Clapper by surprise. The question had been sent to him the day before the hearing. Wyden broke no oath and leaked no secret. He simply asked questions—questions to which, as Wyden pointed out, the Obama Administration had already given deliberately false answers to the public. The senator's stand was fully within the law and the Constitution. That it was for a long time a lonely one is sobering.

These days, people are less quick to attack Wyden's patriotism; he is at the center of the debate over surveillance reform. Along with Senators Mark Udall of Colorado and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both Democrats, and Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, Wyden last month introduced a bill designed to rein in the excesses of the NSA. Their bill would: