ASPEN, Colo. — Conservatives have many reasons to be suspicious of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. He embraced President Obama after Hurricane Sandy in the final days of the 2012 race. He is a Northeasterner in a Southern-dominated party. And he has taken positions on issues like guns that unsettle the political right.

So when Mr. Christie appeared before a group of major donors and party enthusiasts here on Thursday evening, he seized on a subject that provides him a rare opportunity to take a rightward stance, offering a tough-talking hawkish denunciation of the Republican drift toward national security libertarianism.

The governor invoked the Sept. 11 attacks to criticize those who, like Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who is a potential rival for the 2016 presidential nomination, have questioned whether government surveillance efforts have trampled on civil liberties.

“These esoteric, intellectual debates — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation,” Mr. Christie said. “And they won’t, because that’s a much tougher conversation to have.”