Most Americans are worried about government spying—but Chris Christie thinks that’s all “baloney,” “exaggerated,” and “ridiculous.”
On Monday, the likely 2016 candidate delivered a speech in New Hampshire, where he charged that, “Too often, the loudest voices in the debate about how to keep our country safe are driven by some purist, theoretical vision of how we should manage our intelligence efforts.”
His prepared remarks then read, “Let me be clear—all these fears are baloney.” A transcript of the actual delivered speech appears to instead read, “Let me be clear – all these fears are exaggerated and ridiculous.”
Christie derided “civil liberties extremists,” who “want you to think that there’s a government spook listening in every time you pick up the phone or Skype with your grandkids.”
“When it comes to fighting terrorism, our government is not the enemy,” he said, declaring that Americans “shouldn’t listen to people like Edward Snowden, a criminal who hurt our country and now enjoys the hospitality of President Putin – while sending us messages about the dangers of authoritarian government.”
He also addressed the Patriot Act, key provisions of which are set to expire in June. The House recently passed a reform bill that would reauthorize the Patriot Act with modest privacy reforms.
But in the Senate, Mitch McConnell is pushing for a clean extension of the law. Christie joined Marco Rubio in praising this plan.
“We need to toughen our anti-terror and surveillance laws to give our intelligence services the legal mechanisms to do their job,” he said. “We should begin by passing a clean extension of the Patriot Act.”
Christie lavished praise on the legislation, saying that he himself has used its authorizations “aggressively.”
“I used this tool extensively, aggressively and legally as U.S. attorney and I can tell you this: it works.”
According to a recent poll, the majority of Americans—including Republicans and “very conservative” voters—oppose renewing the Patriot Act without reforms.
