Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul on Sunday warned that the intelligence community is deceitfully using the terror attacks in Paris to promote its surveillance agenda.
“When you have a fearful time or an angry time, the people are coached into giving up their liberty,” said the Kentucky senator on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Paul has long railed against government surveillance, a topic that has been thrust into the spotlight in the wake of the Paris attacks that killed about 130 people.
{mosads}Many officials and some lawmakers have argued that the incident has shown the need to keep the much-maligned surveillance programs exposed by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.
Several lawmakers — including Paul presidential rival Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — have even introduced legislation to maintain the controversial bulk phone records collection program that Congress voted to abolish earlier this year.
The surveillance reform bill, known as the USA Freedom Act, would transfer the collection to the private sector, still giving officials a way to search the database.
“What they’re not telling you and what they’re being dishonest about is that we still have the phone records program,” Paul said.
He also noted that France’s surveillance programs are “1,000-fold greater than we have.”
“They still didn’t know anything about this,” Paul added.
“You can keep giving up liberties,” he said, “but in the end I don’t think we’ll end up safer.”