DAILY BEAST COLUMN: …For a major Republican presidential candidate, Paul has certainly alienated a lot of Republicans—especially hawks who believe in strong surveillance authorities for the intelligence community. Or, you might think, Paul has carved out a unique segment in the GOP field.
At midnight on Monday, three major surveillance provisions contained within the Patriot Act expired. Paul took procedural steps to block any faster consideration of the USA Freedom Act, which would have continued but reformed those provisions…
“Unfortunately I think it’s part of the presidential campaign,” said Sen. John Cornyn, the number two Republican in the Senate. “This really does raise the risk to the public. It does eliminate one of the tools that the intelligence community has to identify homegrown terrorists. It just seems to me at least reckless to not allow at least a temporary continuation of the bill while we have this debate. But that’s not the way it’s working.”… (more)
