Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has posed quite the question to the Obama administration and the American people regarding the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, asking, “do we no longer have a Fourth Amendment?”
The Kentucky senator released a video on his YouTube page Tuesday defending the Fourth Amendment, of which Paul has become an ardent defender of in light of leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
“When we learned that the NSA was collecting the phone data of every American last June, it posed a serious constitutional question: Do we no longer have a Fourth Amendment?” Paul asked.
The Tea Party darling goes on to cite the history of the Fourth Amendment, discussing the overreach of a government that “went door to door searching anyone and everyone without probable cause and suspicion” and raised an inherent wariness in our Founding Fathers.
“The lesson of the American Revolution was that this should never happen again, and yet the NSA’s data collection program is the modern equivalent to this practice,” Paul said.
The Kentucky Republican went on to call on legislators to obey the Constitution and Americans to “fight back.”
“The Constitution is not a negotiable piece of parchment to be ignored or abused at the president’s will,” he said. “Washington leaders are expected to obey and protect what they took an oath to uphold.”
Paul’s leadership political action committee, RandPAC, announced in a press release Tuesday his plans to sue President Barack Obama and members of his administration for the NSA’s surveillance programs.
‘”I am filing a lawsuit against President Barack Obama because he has publicly refused to stop a clear and continuing violation of the 4th Amendment,” he said in the press release. “The Bill of Rights protects all citizens from general warrants. I expect this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court and I predict the American people will win.”
Watch Paul’s video below.
