Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will push for creation...
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will push for creation of a select congressional committee to investigate government surveillance programs, he said. He lambasted what he called “an intelligence community drunk with power,” speaking Wednesday at the Berkeley Forum in California. “If…
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you own a cellphone, you're under surveillance. I'm here to tell you that the NSA believes that equal protection means that Americans should be spied upon equally, including Congress,” Paul said, according to video the event organizers posted (http://bit.ly/NxckFl): “What you do on your cellphone is none of their damn business.” Paul said surveillance is one area where he can agree with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who worried in recent months about the government surveilling members of Congress. Surveillance goes “beyond party politics,” relevant whether the president is a Democrat or Republican, said Paul. “When I return to Washington I will push for a select committee styled after the Church Committee that investigated the abuses of power by the intelligence community in the ‘70s,” Paul said. “It should be bipartisan, it should be independent and wide-reaching.” The committee “should watch the watchers,” he said. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced a resolution last month calling for such a committee, as have former Church Committee staffers and privacy advocates. Paul warned that U.S. citizens’ right to privacy was under assault and cited the importance of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. He questioned a “generalized” warrant applied to countless phone customers as well as the secrecy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “I look into the eyes of senators, and I think I see real fear,” Paul said. The government has agreed there are changes that should be made to its surveillance programs and is expected to announce details of potential changes, exploring ways to shift collection of phone metadata away from government hands, next week (CD Jan 21 p1).