Sen. Rand Paul pushes back against the National Security Agency and its massive surveillance of telephone records, in an interview with Jake Tapper of CNN. He pledges to introduce legislation forbidding “generalized warrants,” which he believes are already unconstitutional. He also contrasted the less than truthful testimony before Congress of the Director of National Intelligence with Edward Snowden’s truth-telling.
That’s the beauty of politics– it is kaleidoscopic. I doubt we agree about much, but on the fourth amendment we’re on the same page.
Now, there’s an ironic coincidence: Rand talking about spying and how he’s gonna trap the spies while in the little box on the lower right-hand side is an alert about window washers trapped, they who can see all and decide who else sees well!
Yet, it will be interesting to see if Snowden becomes a victim of extrajudicial termination (not much differently than a drone-struck foe) in retribution for his extralegal exposure of (already well-known) nefarious government activities. Now, we get to see Spy vs Spy* in action! And, what? Me worry?
* link to en.wikipedia.org
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Do you feel secure in your papers and effects? Is there probably cause for the NSA to tap your phones, to read your emails and to otherwise pry into your personal matters. Who signs the affidavit saying you, or I, or any other American, who has done nothing to violate the laws of the land and who love and respect the Constitution, do not have this fundamental right? Is there particularity as to what the NSA wants to hear in your phone calls? Is there particularly in what they seek in your emails? In your FB posts? In your Tweets? Next they will put a mike in your bedroom to see if your wife or lover is a terrorist…get real…this is a defining moment in American history. I voted for Obama, but as a Constitutional lawyer, he knows better than this and there is no way the Congress should let this mess proceed without concrete evidence that these broadly construed searches do anything other than invade the privacy of Americans.
Joe Stalin was our friend for a while, too…
Let’s remember what the system the Paulists are pushing, pushing, pushing for every day actually would look like:
link to nakedcapitalism.com
And for folks who frustrate themselves debating with libertarians, here’s an entry point into the reasons they are so what-everrrr… link to libertarian.co.uk , and another, out of a whole literature of the same: link to daviddfriedman.blogspot.com
Don’t get sucked in by the powdered-sugar coating, or the appearance of orderliness.
X group is bad. Everything X groups says is therefore bad.
I think the above attitude is one of the reasons we are in so much trouble as a world.
I don’t agree with Juan Cole half the time, but when he is right he is right and his analysis is valuable.
Well said.
Alliances change all the time – ask the Arabs about that! And right now, there’s never been a more pressing need in the Republic than for progressives to align themselves with the libertarian right on national security and civil liberties issues. Despite all of the horrors they unleashed on the world and their monunemental incompetence in dealing with the wars they helped start, centrist Democrats and neoconservatives in the GOP still hold total dominance over the most vital aspects of our national policies. These groups have the vast majority of our major media outlets, whether print (NYT, WaPo, WSJ) or in TV (CNN, Fox and MSNBC) on their side, a sleek and well funded propoganda operation. We need every voice we can get NOW to stop them.
What libertarians are, versus what the Paul family’s capitalist religion is, needs closer scrutiny.
Can you really be a libertarian if you want states to outlaw abortion?
Would Rand Paul retain his redneck vote if he explained to them that as a libertarian he wants to shut down their beloved empire and all the MIC jobs (and Moslem-killing opportunities) that it provides them? I mean, he DOES, doesn’t he?
Does Paul think, like his father, that Lincoln had no right to fight secession or free the slaves? Does he feel the 14th Amendment should be repealed so that states could take the right to vote away from minorities again? (Many privately do.)
Of course a far right-winger wants state governments to have absolute authority. State governments have always been the prime tool of oppression of the poor, non-white and non-Protestant. But if Paul’s definition of liberty consists only of what it meant in 1800 – when only white male property-owners were assured of the right to vote everywhere – then it only consists of what white male property-owners desired for themselves. F*** all the rest of us. Thus censorship boards run by clergymen, laws against race-mixing (not just blacks), and laws against trade unions were all okay in that “free” society.
And if you don’t think tyranny can be decentralized and privatized, recall how a hooded terrorist group ruled much of America for generations on the principles of state’s rights, property rights, and a monopoly of power for white men. At least they were honest about it.