Rand Paul: ‘Outside the Beltway, People Do Still Care About the Bill of Rights’

Rand Paul: "Outside The Beltway, People Do Still Care About The Bill Of Rights" (RealClearPolitics)

Sen. Rand Paul responds to critics calling him "off the wall" and "dangerous" for saying the PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional and must be reformed.

SEN. RAND PAUL: I think that kind of disregard for the Bill of Rights -- he may think that is popular, and it might be popular inside the Beltway, but outside the Beltway people do still care about the Bill of Rights.

One of the things that happens that does affect peoples' civil liberties under the PATRIOT Act is that 99% of the time, one of the sections is not being used for terrorists, but actually being used for domestic crimes.

They promised when it passed that, oh we need to lower the standards, we're going to get rid of the constitution, we can't have constitutional protections for terrorists.

Some of that I can expect, but the warning was that eventually this would be used against the American people for other possible crimes.

Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, over 99% of the time is being used for domestic crimes. We gave up on the Constitution without even really understanding what we were doing. I'm just trying to get it back.