Rand Paul vows to filibuster the PATRIOT Act

  Last week the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the NSA’s data-mining program was illegal because it exceeded the authority the Congress granted the agency under the PATRIOT Act. This decision did not rule the program unconstitutional however so it is possible the Congress can write new legislation, or add an amendment to the PATRIOT Act, granting the NSA this authority when many of us believe the PATRIOT Act already goes too far and needs to be reigned in. 

  The timing of this ruling is actually quite interesting because the PATRIOT Act is coming up for re-authorization and it will be interesting to see which side of the domestic spying program the Republican presidential hopefuls fall on. Will they fall on the side of privacy, the Constitution, and the Fourth Amendment, or will they fall on the side of Big Brother?

  For the most apart it appears as if, with the exceptions of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, the Republican contenders are siding with Barack Obama’s expansion of a spying program into illegality and will most likely vote to give the NSA the power it has already usurped. And this goes for as yet undeclared Republican candidate Jeb Bush as well, who also agrees with the data-mining program.

  (On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton of course refused to give her position on this issue by not commenting on the ruling.)

  There is one candidate however who has been very vocal in his opposition to the NSA’s data-mining program and that is Rand Paul, who recently said the decision did not go far enough and needs to be fought all the way to the Supreme Court.

  And now, while in New Hampshire, Rand Paul vowed to filibuster the PATRIOT Act when it comes up for debate:

“I’m going to lead the charge in the next couple of weeks as the Patriot Act comes forward,” he said in a one-on-one interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader. “We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it. We are not going to let them run over us. And we are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches.”

    Rand Paul and (I presume) Ted Cruz will be men on an island, fighting against the establishment and for the Fourth Amendment while most of the other Republicans who claim to be liberty and Constitution loving Americans work to oppose the very document they claim to love and in doing so will look to attack and demean the people who are defending it.

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium