Senator uses clever response to bash the NSA using emojis

It's 2015, and sitting US senators now engage in policy discourse via emoji. 

On Friday, the National Security Agency posted a tweet highlighting its role surveilling the internet for signs of foreign threats.

Several hours later, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), a critic of the NSA who has repeatedly called for the end of the NSA's controversial bulk collection program, slammed the agency - also using emojis.

Last month, Wyden teamed up with several other senators, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), to help block provisions in the re-authorization of the Patriot Act. They would've continued the NSA's data-collection program, which was revealed in documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013. 

Though privacy advocates succeeded in eliminating the controversial NSA program, there was a catch: The legislation that passed allows the NSA to "wind-down" its collection for the next several months. But by the time the bill passed both Houses, the program had already automatically ended.

Wyden condemned the agency for restarting the bulk-collection program. 

"I see no reason for the Executive Branch to restart bulk collection, even for a few months," Wyden said in a statement last month, according to NBC. "This illegal dragnet surveillance violated Americans' rights for fourteen years without making our country any safer."