Today’s widespread outrage over reports that the National Security Agency is conducting widespread, untargeted, domestic surveillance on millions of Americans reminds me of this post from July 2012, in which Sen. Rand Paul reported on a private briefing he’d received. He couldn’t reveal what he’d learned, but he was able to report that the number of Americans subject to surveillance was closer to “a gazillion” than to zero. Now we have a bit more information. As I wrote then:
Sen. Rand Paul (R‑KY) gave a great speech on surveillance last week at FreedomFest. Actually, he gave two good speeches, but the one embedded below is his short 6‑minute talk at the Saturday night banquet. He talks about our slide toward state intrusion into our phone calls, our emails, our reading habits and so on. You know how big the surveillance state has gotten? The answer is “a gazillion.” Watch the speech—complete with high-falutin’ references to Fahrenheit 451 and the martyr Hugh Latimer!
