Rand Paul: “I think the vast majority of the intelligence community, as are the vast majority of policemen, good people. They are…”

“I think the vast majority of the intelligence community, as are the vast majority of policemen, good people. They are trying to do what is best for the country. They are patriotic people, and they are really trying to do what is necessary within the confines of the law. The issue is that the intelligence community has such vast power, and a lot of it is secret power. So we have to have a great deal of trust in those who run the agency because we have entrusted them with such enormous power to look through information. Then, when they come to us and say, ``Well, you have to give up a little more liberty; you have to give up a little bit more in order to get security,'' we have to trust the information because they control all of the information they give us. And then we find--when we ask a high-ranking official in the committee whether they were doing bulk collection of data and the answer was not true--they said they weren't doing something that they obviously were doing--it makes us distrust the whole apparatus. I agree with the Senator from Oregon that the vast majority of law enforcement and the intelligence community are good people. They are patriotic. They want to stop terrorism, as we all do. But what we are arguing about is the process and the law and the Constitution and trying to do it within the confines of the Constitution.…”