Judge Andrew Napolitano has followed up on his recent declaration at Fox News that the United States government can continue to conduct mass surveillance despite the expiration this week of PATRIOT Act Section 215 authority. Interview by Kennedy at Fox Business, Napolitano declares that, while “politicians who are in favor of destroying privacy would have you believe” that the mass surveillance program has ended, “the reality is there’s another section of the PATRIOT Act and there’s a President George W. Bush executive order, both still intact, both of which permit the collection of bulk metadata.”
Napolitano, a Ron Paul Institute Advisory Board Member, proceeds to argue that the sacrifice of liberty for security has resulted in diminished security. “The intellectually honest people in the government will tell you that” in the current mass surveillance approach “they are suffering from too much data, not from not enough data,” says Napolitano. Following the requirements of the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, Napolitano explains, “forces law enforcement to focus on the bad guys” and, therefore, would be more effective in protecting people from violence.
Concludes Napolitano:
Nothing has changed, except that the argument has gotten more intense because the politicians in both parties in both houses [of Congress] across the political spectrum want to give the American public the false impression that by interfering with their privacy they will somehow keep us safe. That makes them beat their chests: “Look at what we did for you.” And it’s a farce.
Watch Napolitano’s complete interview here:
