On radio Friday, Glenn spoke at length with Sen. Rand Paul about his candidacy and his policies. Many are concerned about the foreign policy of a Libertarian candidate, so Glenn asked him what he would say to those who think a Libertarian stance could lead to a terror attack. Dr. Paul went into detail on his stance on the surveillance state, the Middle East, and the PATRIOT Act.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment:
GLENN: How do you respond to people who would -- I think I know you well enough to know that you mean what you say, and you will do these things, but when you get into the domestic spying, you said in your speech that on day number one, you will revoke that executive order and you will stop the spying on Americans. What do you say to people who would then, the minute we'd get hit, and we are going to get hit one way or other. It is a matter of time before something happens. What would you say to people who say well, it's your fault, because that's what will happen.
PAUL: Well, people say this about the PATRIOT Act. I tried to get rid of the PATRIOT ACT, because I think it turns the Constitution up-side down. People said what would you rely on. I said couldn't we just for a day rely on the Constitution? The same way with the spying program.
I'm not saying don't use intelligence. I think we should use our intelligence to find out about people who might attack us.
If you are here, you moved here from Pakistan or from Yemen last year and you are calling people back in Yemen and are plotting, and we have evidence, we should look at your phone records. If your records include 20 people you called in the country and in Yemen, and there is suspicion and you take it to a judge, look at their phone records. I don't care if you go 20 hops into the material looks for people who are terrorists. I just want you to ask an judge and put an individual's name on the warrant.
What I object to is the warrant that Snowden revealed, said Verizon on it. I don't know anyone named Mr. Verizon. Mr. Verizon doesn't have possession of hundreds of millions of phone calls he has the right to divulge. You need of warrants that are individualized. This was a big deal. Just finished reading Mike Lee's take on this. Have you seen Mike Lee's new book?
GLENN: Yes, I have.
PAUL: In the book, he tells the story of John Wilkes, a story about his opposition to the king, because the king came after him with a warrant without his name on it. This is what began this whole history of the 4th Amendment that we would individualize -- the government, no matter who it was, had to have your name on a warrant. It can't be a blanket warrant for anybody's stuff.
