Rand Paul: “the privacy issue has been around for a long time. The brutal abuse of privacy and property of early Americans played a…”

“the privacy issue has been around for a long time. The brutal abuse of privacy and property of early Americans played a big role in our revolt against the king. {time} 1800 The first, fourth, and fifth amendments represented attempts to protect private property and privacy from an overzealous Federal Government. Today those attempts appear to have failed. There have been serious legal debates in recent decades about whether privacy is protected by the Constitution. Some argue that since the word does not appear in the text of that document, it is not protected. Others argue that privacy protection grants the Federal Government power to dictate to all States limits or leniency in enforcing certain laws. But the essence of liberty is privacy. In recent years, especially since 9/11, Congress has been totally negligent in its duty to protect U.S. citizens from Federal Government encroachment on the rights of privacy. Even prior to 9/11, the Echelon worldwide surveillance system was well entrenched, monitoring all telephones, faxes, and e-mails. From the 1970s forward, national security letters were used sparingly in circumventing the legal process and search warrant requirements. Since 9/11 and the subsequent passage of the PATRIOT Act, however, the use of these instruments has skyrocketed from 300 annually to over 30,000. There is essentially no oversight nor understanding by the U.S. Congress of the significance of this pervasive government surveillance.…”