On this weekend’s “Fox News Sunday,” Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul suggested taking the government to court over its tracking of private citizens’ phone records.
According to Paul, going after specific individuals with a search warrant was reasonable. However, he said “trolling” billions of records was not acceptable.
“My suspicion is, and a lot of this is classified — the other side gets to promote their case and we don’t get the information — but my suspicion is that this gentleman was targeted because they suspected him for being a terrorist,” Paul said. “I have no problem if you have probable cause and you target people who are terrorist and people who they are communicating with, and you get a warrant. But we’re talking about trolling through billions of phone records.”
Paul told host Chris Wallace he is considering challenging the government at the Supreme Court level with a class-action suit on behalf of those targeted.
“We’re not talking about going after a terrorist,” he continued. “I’m all for that. Get a warrant, go after a terrorist or a murderer or a rapist. But don’t troll through a billion phone records every day. That is unconstitutional, it invades our privacy. And I’m going to be seeing, if I could challenge this at the Supreme Court level. I’m going to be asking all of the Internet providers and all of the phone companies and ask your customers to join me in a class-action lawsuit. If we get 10 million Americans saying we don’t want our phone records looked at, then somebody will wake up and say things will change in Washington.”