Revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance techniques may help bring young voters back to the Republican Party, Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul says.
"We need young people in the party," Paul said during a fund-raiser for the Arkansas GOP Friday night,
reports Fox News.
"Since we've had the different spying scandals, I think if there were a Republican who stood up for privacy, who stood up for the Fourth Amendment, I think the young people will come back to us."
Paul last month filed a
class-action lawsuit against the Obama administration over the National Security Agency's far-reaching data-collection policies, saying he is aiming the effort to "apply to millions of people ... to say 'No, you can't have our records without our permission'."
Paul
has said he is considering seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2016, and his lawsuit against the NSA's surveillance policies is being seen as an early play in that plan.
Paul is up for re-election to his Senate seat in 2016, and is adding supporters for his NSA lawsuit to his
political database. The names and emails of anyone who signs onto his campaign website, RandPaul2016.com, goes into the database, his campaign acknowledges.
On Friday, Paul said expanding the party's appeal to younger voters would be key to winning the presidency, and he recognizes "I'm in a position where I do have a chance so we really are considering it," he said. "I also think if we do the same thing we've always done, we're not going to win. So it has to be different. It has to have a different twist."
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