Rand Paul introduces legislation which would make it illegal for the government to use drones to spy on Americans without a warrant

  When the president put his signature on the National Defense Authorization Act and the FAA Reauthorization Act–two bills which passed the Republican led House with overwhelming support–the stage was set for 30,ooo unmanned drones to begin patrolling the skies of American cities by the year 2020.

  These drones would begin watching law abiding American citizens who were not suspected of committing any crime; we will be entering the age of the perpetual police surveillance state as these drones will be allowed to collect information on American citizens as long as they aren’t looking for specific information. So much for the fourth amendment, but it gets even worse because if information is collected which wasn’t authorized that information can still be transferred to law enforcement agencies despite the fact it was illegally obtained.

    How in hell the Tea Party led House ever allowed this bill to see the light of day is beyond me, but somebody in the Congress finally stood up for the constitution. Yesterday Rand Paul introduced the Preserving Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act which would protect Americans by requiring the federal government to procure a search warrant before it is allowed to spy on American citizens. It is a sad state of affairs in this country when we need to pass a bill to reaffirm our constitutional rights but such is the world we live in today even with the Tea Party in control of one branch of the Congress.

  Here is what Rand Paul had to say when introducing this bill:

Like other tools used to collect information in law enforcement, in order to use drones a warrant needs to be issued,” Paul said Tuesday. “Americans going about their everyday lives should not be treated like criminals or terrorists and have their rights infringed upon by military tactics

  Here is a little bit more about this bill:

The bill, S. 3287, would require the government to obtain a warrant to use drones with the exception of patrolling national borders, when drones are needed to prevent “imminent danger to life” or when there are risks of a terrorist attack.
The bill would also give Americans the ability to sue the government for violating the act. And, it would prohibit evidence collected with warrantless drone surveillance from being used as evidence in court

  I couldn’t agree more with Rand Paul or this bill but I am afraid there is one problem with this bill’s future. Rand Paul is going to be asking the very same people who signed off on the National Defense Authorization Act and the FAA Reauthorization Act in the first place to admit they made a mistake by signing onto this bill and I think it faces an uphill battle.

  There is one thing that could possibly help gain support within the Congress for this bill and that is the fact that this is an election year. Tea Party Republicans talked about the constitution endlessly while campaigning in 2010 only to abandon that talk when they signed off on these bills after the election. It is quite possible that the very same Tea Party Republicans will once again conveniently find their admiration for the constitution now that they are facing reelection and may support this bill in the hopes that the American people will forget they are partly responsible for authorizing drone use in the first place.

  While the prospects of the bill don’t appear promising to me at least we will get everybody on the record and we will know who stands for liberty and the constitution and who stands for the police state.

  And just in case you are one of those people who are supporting Mitt Romney simply because you feel he would be better than Barack Obama, think again because Mitt Romney supported the National Defense Authorization act as well. And it mustn’t be forgotten that the NDAA deemed the United States a battlefield in the war on terror and allowed for the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge.