Paul takes some credit on NSA plan

Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday praised reports that President Barack Obama is moving toward ending the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone data, saying he’s willing to take some credit.

“I don’t want to take all the credit for ending this, but I think our lawsuit had something to do with bringing the president to the table,” Paul said on Fox News’s “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday.


Paul has been an outspoken critic of the NSA’s surveillance tactics and has sued the government challenging the program as unconstitutional.

But the Kentucky Republican warned that despite the indications that Obama will endorse the program’s end, a lot remains to be worked out.

“I don’t like the idea of collecting the data. If it’s left in the phone company’s hands, and you have to have a warrant with an individual’s name on it, then that I think meets the law, the Constitution,” Paul said. “But we’ll have to see what happens. The president sometimes says one thing and does another. So the devil is in the details here.”

Paul also said he doubts the president’s claim that he needs Congress’s sign-off to end the program.

“He unilaterally instituted this program without congressional authority,” Paul said. “I think he could unilaterally stop the program if he were serious about it.”

The tea party favorite also said he has concerns about the broader intelligence community, saying even if agencies like the CIA say they need the NSA surveillance, he’s not sure he can take them at their word.

“I’m not sure whether to believe them or not,” Paul said. “We have the CIA now illegally searching congressional computers, giving access and then removing access, and I really think that there needs to be an overall investigation of the intelligence community. I favor a select committee like they had in the 1970s, the Church Committee, to look into all of these. There is a certain amount of arrogance here that needs to be checked.”

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Rand Paul