Rand Paul Sues President Obama Over NSA Spying

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Rand Paul Sues President Obama Over NSA Spying - Video

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," February 12, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST:Welcome back to "Hannity." After months of threatening legal action against the Obama administration, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul along with Freedom Works has filed a class action lawsuit over the National Security Agency's domestic spying law. The suit named President Obama, director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA Director Keith Alexander, and FBI Director James Comey.

Calling it one of the largest class action lawsuits in history, the senator alleges that the NSA surveillance program violates the Fourth Amendment which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Here to explain, the man himself, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Senator, welcome back good to see you.

SEN. RAND PAUL, R - KY:Hey, Sean, thanks for having me.

HANNITY:The legal action is officially entitled "Rand Paul Versus Barack Obama." And from what I read you're kind of hitting the ground running you have over 350,000 plaintiffs. You expect millions of Americans will join this?

PAUL:Well, the interesting thing about this is the class could include anybody who has a cellphone or anybody who has a landline. So it is really virtually everyone in the United States. And I think that illustrates the problem, is that a single warrant should not apply to so many people.

The Fourth Amendment said that if you want a warrant to look at someone's records to invade their privacy, you have to name the person, the place and the items. You can't just say OK, we're going to search everybody's home in Washington D.C. or Bowling Green, Kentucky. You have to name the person. That was to protect our privacy. And so we really think the NSA program has gone way overboard, and we want a decision in an open court, in the Supreme Court where there is open debate. We think that is the only thing consistent with a constitutional republic.

HANNITY:I would support data-mining - and I have supported data-mining of terrorists, of suspects. The law specifically prohibits the spying against Americans. I have talked to the author of the bill - Jim Sensenbrenner -- numerous times. This is not what it was designed for, intended for, explicitly says you cannot do, doesn't it?

PAUL:The president when he talked about privacy recently, he said this was like the history of Paul Revere warning us. But Paul Revere was not saying the Americans are coming. He was saying the British were coming. It was about a foreign invasion.

So really I think he has it wrong. And the fact that he thinks he can look at all of our records without a cause, without probable cause or suspicion, see, that is what warrants are based on. You go to a judge and the police say to the judge we think this person robbed the store, we think this person is a murderer or we think this person is a terrorist. They present evidence because this protects us from them from going into everyone's home or invading everyone's papers. This is a big and very important and to me a momentous constitutional issue. And so far it has only been decided in secret. We have these courts called FISA courts which are national security courts. But this is a question of the Constitution, and it needs to lift the veil of secrecy and needs to be debated in public.

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Exclusive: Rand Paul says NSA spying has gone 'overboard ...

By Kate Randall 14 February 2014

Massive spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) poses a direct threat to journalism, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released Wednesday. The CPJ is warning, in particular, that the agencys dragnet of communications data threatens to make it next to impossible for journalists to keep sources confidential.

New York-based CPJ devotes the first two chapters of its annual report, entitled Attacks on the Press, to an assessment of the impact of the NSAs vast data sweep, which has been exposed by Edward Snowden and reported by numerous media outlets. The report notes that by storing massive amounts of data for long periods, the spy agency could develop the capability to recreate a reporters research and retrace a sources movements by listening in on past communications.

The report points to the threat to press freedom in the context of the revelations of illegal government spying and the Obama administrations unprecedented campaign against whistle-blowers. It quotes William Binney, who resigned from the NSA in 2001 in protest over privacy violations the agency committed post-9/11. Binney believes that the government keeps tabs on all journalists and notes that they are a much easier, smaller target set to spy on than the general population.

Alex Abdo, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, one of a team of lawyers who have litigated against the NSA for violating constitutional protections, told the CPJ that all reporters should be worried about the NSAs vast collection and storage of data. Reporters who work for the largest media organizations should be worried probably primarily because their sources will dry up as those sources recognize that there is not a way to cover their trail, he said. He added that independent journalists should be concerned that they themselves will be swept up in the course of their reporting.

The watchdog group chillingly notes that the NSAs storage of metadata creates a deep breeding ground for artificial intelligence systems, which may in the future lead to more efficient, even predictive, spying machines. As capabilities evolve, CPJ warns, such systems could be utilized to identify patterns of journalistic activity, targeting reporters for surveillance, intimidation and potential prosecution long before they actually engage in any suspect reporting.

President Barack Obama has absurdly asserted that despite the exposure of programs to collect data on millions of Americans phone calls, emails and Internet activity, there is no evidence that the US intelligence complex has sought to violate the law.

Meanwhile, top NSA officials have indicated that the token reforms announced by the president last month will do little to curb the agencys spying activities. Theyre not putting us out business, commented NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett on the measures in a recent interview with the Washington Post. He added, Theyre not putting an unbearable burden on us.

Obama has tasked Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper to develop options by March 28 for ending the NSAs storage of data on Americans phone calls. So far, no such plan has been drawn up, and Congress must approve any changes to the agencys operations.

The presidents measures also include a requirement that the NSA obtain pro forma court approval before it can run a suspects phone number against the agencys database. However, even this largely cosmetic restriction is vitiated by a provision allowing the NSA to query the data without prior court approval by invoking an emergency exception.

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NSA spying poses “direct threat to journalism ...