Ron Paul on data mining: Blatant violation of the Constitution

>>> the notion that we're trolling through everyone's e-mails and voyeuristically reading them or listening to phone calls is on the face absurd. we couldn't do it if we wanted to and we don't want to.

>> that's the director of national intelligence james clapper in a sit-down exclusive interview with andrea mitchell over the weekend pushing back against the notion of a big brother government but opponents say that's what we should be afraid of. joining me on the phone, famously known for a presidential candidate and former republican congressman of texas, ron paul . thank you for joining me.

>> thank you, chuck. nice to be with you.

>> i want to start with this issue. you called mr. snowden -- you have been -- you have praised him and essentially said that he's a hero in this case. you've heard there's a lot of senators, both democrats and republicans, who believe what he did was illegal and should be treated as a traitor. why shouldn't he be treated as a traitor?

>> well, it is probably illegal. there's laws against this. but what about the people who are breaking the law , violating the constitution? even using the patriot act extensively and said they did the act within the law. who's going to punish them? why not talk about those individuals breaking the law and which one has the higher order, the constitution and the written law or the authority of the executive branch who controls the enforcement of laws? i would say that the bigger the government gets the greater threat is the lack of knowing the truth of things. so really, my goal in life has always been to try to figure out what the the law and individual who is are willing to take a risk and realize the danger of telling the people the truth, they're real heroes for instance right now, we have a cia agent in prison because he told us the truth about torture so i would say that we have to sort this out both moral sense and a legal sense but to say that only the whistle-blowers are the ones who are breaking the law we should question the people in authority about breaking the law and what recourse do we have? evidently they feel very frustrated and they have to go to the public because going to the fbi and other agencies to investigate themselves doesn't seem to pan out very well.

>> now, i had a lawmaker say to me yesterday that you get more protection from the media than perhaps going to an inspector general or the fbi. i want to ask you this question about the issue, there seems to be two issues. one is disclosure of the programs and the other is whether the programs are in some part a violation of the fourth amendment. start with the disclosure and transparency. would you be potentially uncomfortable but accepting of, for instance, the telephone data base program, the idea they vacuum cleaner essentially all telephone numbers and which -- what american telephone numbers , what calls to who, not necessarily the contents in a database and if the government is transparent about that procedure, would you be more accepting of the procedure?

>> being transparent about them breaking the law and violating the fourth amendment doesn't make me feel any better.

>> you believe that even the telephone, even that specific instance, set aside the issue of prism, that that one also is a vie ligs of the fourth amendment?

>> yeah. the big question is, dwrshd they do it? we're not listening and not going to use it and we are not going to ever use it. well, why do it? you know? if they're looking for ten people, why do they have to look at 300 peopmillion people's activity? it's a blatant violation of the clear language of the constitution, the fourth amendment. and the founders knew what this was about. i mean, the british did it to them. they wanted the try to prevent this. yet now, we have the heroics and the politics saying, oh, you know, to be a patriot, the person tells us the truth, they're committing the treason and turned on its head and the foolishness, even the political foolishness of the republicans running to rescue obama, the american people are sick and tired of all this snooping and prying and surveillance.

>> right.

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Ron Paul on data mining: Blatant violation of the Constitution