Sen. Paul Sues Over NSA Surveillance

Former Virginia Attorney General Is Lead Lawyer

Senator Rand Paul (R – KY) has filed a class-action lawsuit against the Obama Administration today, seeking a court ruling to end the NSA’s telephone metadata surveillance program. The hope is to get the case to the Supreme Court.

FreedomWorks is a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, and the head of the legal team is Ken Cuccinelli, the former Attorney General for the state of Virginia.

Paul detailed the reasons for the lawsuit in a statement on CNN.com, insisting it was a vital defense of the Fourth Amendment, and adding that the NSA treats Americans “as no more than common criminals, casting suspicion on honest people with not even a whisper of criminal activity about them.”

The Obama Administration has dismissed public outcry about the metadata collection, insisting it is no big deal, and the Justice Department has repeatedly sought to kill lawsuits surrounding the question of surveillance in general, arguing that the secret programs can only be judged by secret courts, and can’t be contested in any way.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.