Pubdate: Fri, 09 Aug 2013
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2013 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Rand Paul
Note: Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, is a member of the Senate 
Foreign Relations and Homeland Security committees.

NATIONAL SECURITY RUN AMOK

The Feds Have Concluded Americans Would Rather Be Safe Than Free

In March, Sen. Ron Wyden asked Director of National Intelligence 
James R. Clapper if the federal government had "any type of data at 
all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." Mr. Clapper 
replied, "Not wittingly." In June, we learned that the National 
Security Agency (NSA) had not only been collecting millions of 
Americans' phone data, but every American's phone data - wittingly. 
This astounding level of surveillance that government officials first 
denied quickly became something they were eager to defend. All of it 
was essential and necessary, we were told. President Obama and others 
also assured us that the NSA was only collecting "metadata" and not 
eavesdropping on our phone calls.

Never mind that you can learn a lot about a person by tracking their 
private communications, even if you're not necessarily privy to the 
nature of those communications. Never mind that we have little reason 
to trust the government's claims that it does not listen to our 
private conversations. Never mind that we have a Fourth Amendment 
that requires the government to acquire a warrant before it can pry 
into our private lives - for metadata or any other data. Never mind 
that we should never simply trust our government's "good intentions" 
when it steps beyond its constitutional bounds.

This week, Reuters reported: "A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence 
intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone 
records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal 
investigations of Americans."

Reuters continued, "Although these cases rarely involve national 
security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law 
enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such 
investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers, but also 
sometimes from prosecutors and judges."

The DEA is supposed to track drug dealers. The NSA is supposed to 
track terrorists. We already know that the NSA now monitors every 
American as a potential terrorist, something the director of national 
intelligence once denied.

We now know that federal agents have been trying to cover up a 
program that investigates Americans. Is the DEA now operating above 
or outside the law as well? If not, why the cover-up? Government 
agencies backtracking their investigations to make it harder for 
lawyers and judges to know where a case originated do not exactly 
enhance the public trust. Former federal judge and Harvard Law School 
professor Nancy Gertner remarked, "I have never heard of anything 
like this at all ... . It is one thing to create special rules for 
national security. Ordinary crime is entirely different." She 
concluded, "It sounds like they are phony-ing up investigations."

Before the Patriot Act, information gained through special national 
security orders could not be used in regular criminal court. The 
Patriot Act, for the first time, allowed information gained through 
extralegal maneuvers to be used in criminal court for crimes 
unrelated to terrorism. At the time, authors of the Patriot Act said, 
"Don't worry. We will never do that." I asked former Attorney General 
Michael B. Mukasey precisely that question, and he reassured me, as a 
parent reassures a child, that we are good people, and will never use 
illegally obtained information in regular court. This reminds me of 
President Obama's promises never to detain American citizens without 
trial. Only time will tell if that promise is kept.

The more you realize the incestuous relationships between these 
agencies, the more questions that are raised. Reuters noted, "The 
unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the 
Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies 
comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue 
Service and the Department of Homeland Security."

The New York Times reported last week that NSA officials have been 
dealing internally with "other federal intelligence agencies that 
want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations."

Each new agency scandal or revelation - whether the IRS, Department 
of Justice, NSA or now, the DEA - paints a picture of a domestic and 
national security apparatus run amok. Our longstanding tradition of 
balancing liberty against security is now threatened by an emerging 
Washington mentality in which no liberty is protected against the 
greater need for security.

When it was revealed that the NSA was spying on all of us, Washington 
simply circled the wagons and defended the program. The Bill of 
Rights became an afterthought.

If it is discovered that agencies like the DEA are involved in 
similar government overreach, can we reasonably expect that the 
wrongdoers will be punished? Or will they be defended and, thus, 
allowed to continue doing wrong?

Is an unlimited, no-questions-asked police state America's current 
trajectory? Is Big Brother now the new norm? Given Washington's 
current standards, what are the limits, exactly, of how far the 
federal government can intrude into the private lives of American citizens?

The simple answer is found in our Constitution. But as with the NSA 
scandal, we now see a political establishment that treats the 
document most of them swore to uphold as a dead letter.

James Madison once observed, "If tyranny and oppression come to this 
land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

National security is one of government's most important functions. So 
is protecting individual liberty. If the Constitution still has any 
sway, a government that is constantly overreaching on security while 
completely neglecting liberty is in grave violation of our founding doctrine.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom