Paul: Christie 'Flippant' About Fourth Amendment and Bill of Rights

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) countered New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s branding of NSA criticism “dangerous” by saying it’s “not very smart” for the governor to call out libertarians like that.

“This strain of libertarianism that’s going through parties right now and making big headlines I think is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said last week, noting that Paul is “one of” the people to whom he was referring.

“He may have heard that, you know, the Republican Party is on life support in the northeast. Republicans are in danger of becoming an endangered species. So, it’s not real smart for Republicans to be attacking Republicans. But I would remind him that I think what is dangerous in our country is to forget that we have a bill of rights, to forget about privacy, to give up on all of our liberty to say, we’re going to catch terrorism but you have to live in a police state,” Paul said on Fox last night.

“And it’s really, I think, kind of sad and cheap that he would use the cloak of 9/11 victims and say, oh, I’m the only one who cares about these victims,” he continued. “Hogwash. If he cared about protecting this country, maybe he wouldn’t be in this give me, give me, give me all of the money you have in Washington or don’t have and he would be a little more fiscally responsive and know that the way we defend our country, the way we have enough money for national defense is by being frugal and not by saying give me, give me, give me all the time.”

Referring to criticism over the Patriot Act, the senator said “we fought the American Revolution over the fact that we didn’t want a warrant to apply to millions of people.”

“The Fourth Amendment says it has to be a specific person, a place, and you have to name the items and you have to go to a judge and you’d have to say there’s probable cause. And here’s the thing, I’m all for getting terrorists. I’m all for — if I were the judge, absolutely, say yes. Get the records. But I’m for spying on terrorists. I’m not for spying on every American,” said Paul.

“And so people like the governor who are, I guess, flippant about privacy, flippant about the Fourth Amendment and flippant about the Bill of Rights, they do an injustice to our soldiers. Our soldiers are laying their lives on the line for the Bill of Rights. So, if we’re not going to stand up for the Bill of Rights, we’re going to say at all costs, we don’t care about liberty, then I think it’s really a mistake and we’ve gone too far.”