Courtesy of Mish.
At midnight, the Patriot Act expires. Given that the Patriot Act should never have passed in the first place, that’s a good thing.
In a Time magazine op-ed, senator Rand Paul proclaimed I Will Stop the Illegal NSA Spying.
Sunday, I will continue my fight to end the illegal collection of American phone records. The Second Appeals court has ruled the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records illegal. We should not be debating modifying an illegal program. We should simply end this illegal program.
We have all the tools we need to preserve both security and liberty. What we now need is a president with the will to do just that.
I would take the billions spent on collecting records of suspicionless Americans and spend it instead on FBI agents to monitor suspects who have given probable cause that they are a danger to us.
Individual warrants every day are used to arrest dangerous people. I see no reason we can’t defend ourselves using the same Constitutional processes we’ve used for over two centuries.
Our country was founded on the principle of individual—not general—warrants.
After the current illegal powers end Sunday night the government could still get a warrant. It will just have to say on it Mr. John Smith, not Mr. Verizon.
One suspect, one warrant. Not hundreds of millions of records swept up in one illegal order.
I would argue this will make us more safe, not less. It has been said that finding a terrorist is like finding a needle in a haystack. Well, for years, your government’s answer has been to make the haystack bigger by gobbling up every American’s information.
That must end.
This president could fix the problem by himself but he hasn’t done so. I stand ready to help lead the way on this important matter. On Sunday I will stop the illegal NSA spying.
Rand Paul Under Pressure
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