Rand Paul: "It's Time To Trash the NSA's Mass Surveillance of Americans, For Good"

Writing in
The Guardian website’s “Comment is Free” page, Sen.
Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says that Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper was “somewhat disingenuous” when he claimed in a
recent interview with The Daily Beast that much of the uproar
surrounding Edward Snowden’s revelations related to the NSA’s
activities could have been avoided if the intelligence community
had been more transparent in the wake of 9/11.

From
The Daily Beast:

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, Clapper said the
problems facing the U.S. intelligence community over its collection
of phone records could have been avoided. “I probably shouldn’t say
this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this from the
outset right after 9/11—which is the genesis of the 215 program—and
said both to the American people and to their elected
representatives, we need to cover this gap, we need to make sure
this never happens to us again, so here is what we are going to set
up, here is how it’s going to work, and why we have to do it, and
here are the safeguards… We wouldn’t have had the problem we had,”
Clapper said.

Paul had this to say in response:

The United States needs intelligence gathering, the ability to
obtain and keep secrets, spying on foreign powers and genuine
threats and all the other tools nations use to protect their
security. No one is disputing this.

But Clapper is being somewhat disingenuous here. Part of the
reason our government does some things behind Americans’ backs is
not for security, but because certain activities, if known, would
outrage the public.

Spying on every American certainly falls into this category. I
also believe it is blatantly unconstitutional, and bringing these
activities to light would immediately spark debates the NSA would
rather not hear.

The notion that if the NSA had informed us they were monitoring
every American would somehow make it OK, does not make it OK.
Explaining why you are violating the Fourth Amendment does not
invalidate the Fourth Amendment.

Paul concludes his op-ed by saying,

It’s time to trash the NSA’s mass surveillance of Americans, for
good.

Unsurprisingly, given that The Guardian is a U.K.-based
paper, some of the commenters are upset that Paul didn’t say that
the NSA’s mass surveillance of everyone, not just Americans, should
be scrapped.

Paul recently filed a
lawsuit against President Obama and other administration
officials over the NSA’s phone metadata collection program.

More from Reason.com on Paul and the NSA here and here.