USA: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul urges Americans to sue the government over surveillance of telephone records

Record ID: 677533

  • Title: USA: Kentucky Senator Rand Paul urges Americans to sue the government over surveillance of telephone records
  • Date: 13th June 2013
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (JUNE 13, 2013) (REUTERS) REPUBLICAN SENATOR RAND PAUL WALKS TO PODIUM (SOUNDBITE) (English) REPUBLICAN SENATOR RAND PAUL SAYING: "Americans are rightly concerned about having all of their phone records collected and monitored all of the time. We're here today to announce that we will be challenging the constitutionality of the court order that collects all of Americans cell phone data all of the time. Our founding fathers objected to general warrants that allowed soldiers to go from house to house searching homes of American colonists. I think they would be equally horrified by a government that goes from phone to phone collecting data on all Americans all the time. The Fourth Amendment clearly states that warrants must be specific to the person and to the place. A court order that allows and does not name an individual target is clearly beyond the scope of the Fourth Amendment. So far we have over 250,000 people who have signed up to be part of this legal case in two days." REPORTERS IN THE AUDIENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) REPUBLICAN SENATOR RAND PAUL SAYING: "I believe we can have liberty and security. I believe that we are actually more secure when we narrow our focus and target specific suspects. Despite mining billions of American phone calls we still had the Boston bombing. Perhaps we are overwhelming ourselves with data. Perhaps this unfocused approach distracted us from knowing that one of the Boston bombers had gone back to Chechnya. Perhaps targeting everyone distracts us from stopping people such as the underwear bomber who we were tipped off about in advance."
  • Embargoed: 28th June 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3Y3GBCKKY3L47AENYC8PADQXF
  • Story Text: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican with libertarian roots and a probable presidential candidate in 2016, announced his plan to initiate a class action suit to challenge the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's nationwide surveillance of telephone records on Thursday (June 13), and he urged the American public to join him.
    Paul said the NSA's vast tracking program of telephone records violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
    "Our founding fathers objected to general warrants that allowed soldiers to go from house to house searching homes of American colonists," said Paul. "I think they would be equally horrified by a government that goes from phone to phone collecting data on all Americans all the time."
    Paul also said that the program was inefficient, and pointed to the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon as an example of an attack that was not prevented by law enforcement despite the mining of telephone data.
    "I believe that we are actually more secure when we narrow our focus and target specific suspects," said Paul. "Despite mining billions of American phone calls we still had the Boston bombing. Perhaps we are overwhelming ourselves with data. Perhaps this unfocused approach distracted us from knowing that one of the Boston bombers had gone back to Chechnya."
    NSA head General Keith Alexander has defended the secret programs, saying that extensive U.S. surveillance efforts had helped stop dozens of possible attacks.
    Alexander said the American public has been misinformed about the breadth of the program, which is closely monitored by U.S. lawmakers.
    "This is not a program where we are out free-wheeling it. It is a well overseen and a very focused program," said Alexander.
    "So I would just tell the American people let's take a step back, look at what's going on, the oversight and the compliance, and then let's have this discussion," he added.
    The suit is being filed amid a furor over leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who disclosed a massive government program to collect and store phone and Internet records from major telecommunications companies.
    Snowden is believed to be in Hong Kong after flying there last month from Hawaii, where he lived. He has said he plans to request asylum and that he divulged secrets to Britain's Guardian newspaper and the Washington Post because he believed the U.S. surveillance programs were illegal and intrusive.
    According to Paul, over 250,000 people have already contacted him through a link on a website he created to express their interest in participating in the suit.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register