Eugene Robinson, a left-leaning columnist for the Washington Post, is taking Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul’s side in the debate over domestic government surveillance techniques.
“I gotta stand with Rand on this one,” Robinson said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday. He said the National Security Agency is “collecting too much data and they’re collecting so much information in such a huge database that it becomes useless.”
Last week, Paul, R-Ky., spoke for hours on the Senate floor against the renewal of some parts of the Patriot Act, which the government has used to justify the collection of phone data from millions of U.S. residents.
The Senate is currently working on passing a new law that would prevent the government from obtaining phone records without a warrant. But last week, senators failed to move ahead on that bill or even a short extension of current authorities, which means the Senate will have to return Sunday to see what, if anything, it can pass.
Paul also drew praise from another unlikely ally: the New York Times editorial board.
“He may have annoyed Senate colleagues by seizing the floor for a marathon monologue on Wednesday, but Sen. Rand Paul did Americans a singular service by forcing attention to the fact that their civil liberties remain at stake as Congress drifts toward a renewal of the Patriot Act that is likely to do too little to rein in government surveillance programs,” the Times wrote last week.
The Times editorial board has criticized Paul before, by saying he’ll need a “character transplant” to win the GOP presidential nomination. But in last week’s editorial, the Times encouraged Paul to use his campaign to speak against domestic surveillance.
Paul has developed a reputation as the libertarian-leaning voice within the GOP.
Some of Paul’s potential 2016 rivals, such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have disagreed with Paul and have supported current surveillance policies.
Matt Drudge, editor of the Drudge Report, also took Paul’s side last week.
“What kind of people want the government to spy on their phone calls? America sick. Getting sicker …” Drudge said on Twitter. He included the hashtag “Stand with Rand,” a slogan popularized by Paul in 2013 when he delivered a similar speech against the Obama administration’s military drone policy.
