Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said in his campaign announcement Tuesday that if elected president, he will end the NSA's "unconstitituonal" surveillance of Americans "on Day One."
President Barack Obama created the "vast dragnet" of records by executive order, Paul said before a crowd of supporters in Louisville, Kentucky. "And as president, on Day One, I will immediately end this unconstitutional surveillance."
Paul said it is possible for Americans to have both liberty and security, "and I will not compromise your liberty for a false sense of security, not now, not ever.
"I say that your phone records are yours," said Paul, holding up a cell phone. "The phone records of law-abiding citizens are none of their damn business."
Paul has been a vocal critic of the National Security Agency's mass data collection ever since it was publicly exposed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden in 2013.
But he drew critics when
he cast a no-vote against an NSA reform bill in November that his GOP presidential rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, supported, National Journal reports.
Paul has said he will fight reauthorization of Section 215 of the Patriot Act that expires on June 1. Section 215 allows collection of phone metadata, including phone numbers, timestamps and duration of calls, but not the actual content of the calls.
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