Ted Cruz on the NSA data-mining:
“I think they view the Constitution as, essentially, a pesky obstruction to carrying out their agenda,” Cruz said. “Whether it is the First Amendment, going after journalists and the media, seizing their phone records and emails, or trying to take away the right of service men and women to share their faith, or whether it’s the Second Amendment, stripping away our right to bear arms, or whether its the Fourth and Fifth Amendment, either with drone policy targeting Americans, or with the NSA not respecting our right to privacy.”
“Every American,” Cruz said, “conservative or liberal, should be concerned when the federal government arrogates to itself so much power that it admits no limits under the Bill of Rights or the Constitution.”
“After revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters’ phone records, it would appear that this Administration has now sunk to a new low,” the libertarian-leaning Republican said.
Ann Coulter thinks the administration is harassing Americans:
She told Sean Hannity tonight that under an “honorable administration,” the government should be able to collect phone records, but said that President Obama, with all the other scandals that have come out, has proven to be untrustworthy and he cares more about “harassing Americans” and his political opponents than actually fighting terrorism.
Newt Gingrich thinks the administration went too far and should’ve merely profiled the Islamists:
“The fact that they relentlessly refuse to profile, and be accurate, and focus on people likely to kill us—and so instead they gather mounds of data about everybody—actually I think weakens our ability to find out the people who are the most dangerous,” Gingrich said.
Bill O’Reilly is outraged, too.
Bill O’Reilly was fired up tonight over the revelation that the government was collecting massive amounts of U.S. cell phone data. Megyn Kelly explained the details of the program to O’Reilly, who engaged in some wild speculation over what the government can do with this information.
Drudge was apoplectic, even posting a screen grab from Greenwald’s post:
So I assume all these guys will support a repeal of the PATRIOT Act, FISA and the 2001 AUMF? They spent eight years demanding a surveillance state under the mantra of “you can’t have a Constitution if you’re dead” and now they’re outraged when they get what they want.