Update: The letter was published in the News-Press on February 16, 2014.
To the editor:
Senator Rand Paul, meet ACLU. With his joinder as a
plaintiff in a recently-filed lawsuit by the Tea Party entity, FreedomWorks,
against President Obama and the National Security Agency, the Far Right has
officially joined the Far Left. Not entirely, of course. Not on many
"social" issues or, to be sure, on taxation. But with formidable
vigor, the Kentucky Senator and his devotees by this filing have entered the
freedom-of-expression and right-to-privacy debates in lockstep with ACLU,
insisting that the government's mass collection of Americans' electronic
messages is unlawful, unconstitutional.
Two previous lawsuits to this effect – by ACLU and by
Judicial Watch – have met with mixed results: the former being dismissed, the
latter victorious, with the issues doubtless headed to the Supreme Court.
But Senator Paul's recent joinder in the claim of the NSA's
unconstitutional over-reach by its "metadata" collection of our
phonecalls and Internet activities does more than add heft to arguments about
its illegality. It shows what we Americans – Left, Right or Middle – have
always known but have seldom seen so squarely framed: That the Bill of Right's
First and Fourth Amendments aren't mere political articulations. The rights to
be free from government intrusion into, and monitoring of, our private
expressions and activities are fundamental to what we, of whatever political
persuasion, hold paramount – rights we've enshrined in our founding documents,
rights we've fought wars to protect and rights we won't surrender to any
secretive, rogue government agency, no matter what its claimed rationalization
or its initials.
