The just-revealed surveillance program operated by the NSA is unconstitutional, says United States Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), and he’s hoping to thwart domestic spying with a new bill and the backing of potentially millions of Americans.
Sen. Paul responded to the news that millions of Verizon
customers had their phone logs collected by the federal
government by introducing the “Fourth Amendment Restoration Act,”
a bill he said will guard the constitutionally guaranteed right
against unlawful searches and seizures.
“The revelation that the NSA has secretly seized the call
records of millions of Americans, without probable cause,
represents an outrageous abuse of power and a violation of the
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,” Paul said Friday
morning.
But only hours after the senator announced he’d be pushing his
proposal on Capitol Hill, further information about the National
Security Agency’s top-secret spy program were leaked by the
Guardian, exposing yet more information about a clandestine
surveillance program that picked at user data transmitted through
the servers of nine major Internet entities.
In the midst of the NSA scandal spiraling out of control, Sen.
Paul used an appearance on Fox News Sunday evening to attack the
latest evidence to surface.
With regards to the surveillance targeting both phone and
Internet use of American customers, Paul proposed launching a
lawsuit against the telecommunication and Web companies that have
collected and shared, perhaps illegally, troves of data on
seemingly everyone in the US.
In particular, Sen. Paul dismissed the notion that the NSA was
collecting user data for counterterrorism purposes, a revelation
that comes less than two months after the first successful
domestic terror plot unfolded on US soil.
“I have no problem if you have probable cause and you target
people who are terrorists and you go after them and people that
they’re communicating with, you get another warrant,” said
the senator. “But we’re talking about trolling through
billions of phone records. We’re not talking about going after a
terrorist. I’m all for that. Get a warrant and go after a
terrorist, or a murderer or a rapist. But don’t troll through a
billion phone records every day. That is unconstitutional, it
invades our privacy and I’m going to be seeing if I can challenge
this at the Supreme Court level.”
“I’m going to be asking all the Internet providers and all of
the phone companies, ask your customers to join me in a class
action lawsuit,” continued Paul. “If we get 10 million
Americans saying we don’t want our phone records looked at then
somebody will wake up and say things will change in
Washington.”
Commenting on the NSA scandal, Sen. Paul compared it to last
month’s bombshell revelation that the Internal Revenue Service
was treating some political organizations, namely factions of the
Tea Party, differently than others.
“And we’ve now got a government that appears to target people
based on our political beliefs. So, I don’t want my records given
to an administration that I can’t trust,” Sen. Paul told Fox.
“I think the American people are with me, and I think if you
talk to young people who use computers on a daily basis, they’re
absolutely with me.”
On Sunday, the Guardian published the identity of a former NSA
contractor who takes credit for blowing the whistle on
surveillance programs. Edward Snowden, 29, is currently in hiding
in Hong Kong and could face extradition to the US, where he is
likely to be indicted for violating the Espionage Act of 1917.
Bradley Manning, John Kiriakou and Thomas Andrew Drake are just
three of the seven men charged under US President Barack Obama
for being in violation of the Espionage Act after allegedly
disclosing classified intelligence. Violations of the Espionage
Act carry a potential maximum penalty of death if convicted.
Since going public, it’s been revealed that Edward Snowden
donated $500 last year to Ron Paul, the former Republican
congressman for Texas and the father of Sen. Paul. The lawmaker
from Kentucky has yet to publically weigh in on Snowden since his
identity was published Sunday by the Guardian.
This article originally appeared on: RT