CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: NSA Spying Lawsuit

Interview

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BLITZER: First, let's continue our conversation on what's going on with this NSA surveillance lawsuit. Senator Rand Paul is suing the Obama administration, including the president of the United States himself, over the NSA sweeping surveillance program. Some critics, though, are arguing the case has no real legal standing and is nothing more than a political stunt.

Let's discuss the lawsuit and much more.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is joining us right now.

Senator, thanks very much for coming in.

PAUL: Good to be with you.

BLITZER: You've heard all the criticism that it really has no legal standing. It's simply designed as a political stunt to strengthen your potential presidential prospects, to strengthen the Tea Party. What say you?

PAUL: The interesting thing is I haven't heard much criticism. I've really heard a lot of thank yous from millions and millions of people with cell phones who want us to stand up for their privacy. So no, we think this lawsuit will get heard. There's already been a lawsuit like this heard simply by people who say their privacy has been breached.

We think there's evidence that anyone who has a cell phone or a landline has had their cell phone breached. So I think achieving standing and being heard in court is very likely since a couple of cases have already been heard. But, you know, the president pushed back yesterday and he said, well, 15 judges have ruled this thing constitution.

You have to get into the nitty-gritty here a little bit. Those 15 judges were in secret courts, primarily, with no one arguing on the side of the Bill of Rights. You only had the government arguing. So we wanted to get into an open court, the Supreme Court, where you can hear both sides and there will be an open debate about whether the Fourth Amendment applies here and I think it needs to happen.

BLITZER: Aren't those members of what's called that FISA court, aren't those judges appointed by the chief justice of the United States, John Roberts? Is he someone you don't trust in these matters?

PAUL: It's not really trust. It's a matter of that I think to get to truth, to find truth in a courtroom, you've got to have a lawyer on both sides. This is sort of something that came out of hundreds of years of common law and figuring out what we wanted to have for jurisprudence and having an attorney on each side is a basic thing that you need to, to try to find truth.

And in that court, the FISA court, number one, it's secret so the hearings aren't public and I think the truth may not always come out when it's in secret. And number two, only the government presents their case. So you only hear from the NSA which, of course, loves to spy and so they always will defend spying but you don't get to hear from any citizens who think, you know what, I haven't done anything wrong and there's no suspicion or no individualized warrant to me. Why should my phone records be dragged up?

So no, I don't think a FISA court -- fundamentally I don't think it can find truth. So I think we need to be in an open court in the Supreme Court and this is a big question about the Bill of Rights, with all the advances in technology, I think really we do need to get this into the Supreme Court.

BLITZER: Well, there are other cases -- the Harvard law professor, Allen Dershowitz, for example, I spoke with him yesterday. He said there are other cases trying to do what you're trying to do that have much greater standing legally speaking. He thinks yours is more of a political stunt, for example. Listen to what -- listen to what Dershowitz said.

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PROF. ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: This issue was already before the court in some different context and those cases will probably reach the Supreme Court. This is more of a political action than an action that has a chance of actually succeeding on its own merits.

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BLITZER: All right. He's the Harvard law professor. What say you to him?

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PAUL: Well, you know, I'm a physician. I hate to argue with Alan Dershowitz. But I would make the point that because ours is going to be a class action lawsuit on behalf of everyone with records, if one of the cases goes forward and only 10 people sue, maybe 10 records get expunged, this would be on behalf of all cell phone users and all cell phone records would be expunged or taken out of the system if we win.

And it also illustrates the point that we're suing on behalf of everyone who's had their records collected, not just 10 or 20 people. Ours also argues specifically that this is a Fourth Amendment issue. It doesn't argue over statute. So actually there are legal scholars who are saying we have a great chance and we've talked to several of these.

And, you know, legal scholars can sometimes disagree and they also have political opinions, too. So we'll see how it goes. But we won't know until we try and I think it's an important enough question that we do try. And I can't say that we will win but we're going to try our hardest to defend the Fourth Amendment because we think what the president is doing is wrong and goes against what the Fourth Amendment stands for.

BLITZER: The other argument saying -- suggesting that this is more political than legal is that folks who do want to sign up and become part of this lawsuit, they're directed to what's called Rand PAC, one of your political action committees, to try to generate support, raise money for your political operation and they say this is the real reason behind this lawsuit.

PAUL: Well, we did --

BLITZER: That's what the argument is.

PAUL: Right. Well, we did that initially because I'm not allowed to do it as a senator. So it's illegal for me to do this through my official position. I have to do it as a private citizen and we have to have an entity to collect money and that entity already existed, but now we are converting over. Now that we've teamed up with FreedomWorks, there will be an entity that is a nonpolitical entity that will do this and it's called the constitutiondefensefund.com.

So while we did start out through my PAC, I never really liked it and I think it gave across the wrong appearance that this was political. Every question really probably in the United States is political if you talk about the Constitution or current events. But we don't want it to be overly partisan. We do really want it to be something that both people from the right and the left, young and old can join if they think the government has gone too far.

And really this is an interesting issue because it does unite young and old, right and left, Republican and Democrat. So this is an issue I think that needs to have its day out in the open with lots of sunshine --

BLITZER: But Senator --

PAUL: -- and in front of the Supreme Court.

BLITZER: Yesterday when you made the announcement, you had FreedomWorks' leaders, the Tea Party activists, standing alongside with you. That would reinforce the political as opposed to, let's say, the legal basis for this lawsuit.

PAUL: Well, they are a citizens group and they may be defenders of the Bill of Rights but they are not associated with any one party and I think Matt Kibbe's remarks, the president of FreedomWorks, was specifically that. That this isn't a Republican or Democrat issue. And in fact, if you've seen my work in the Senate on this -- I'm trying to reform the NSA -- it has been bipartisan.

I've worked with Senator Wyden, Senator Udall, Senator Blumenthal on trying to reform the FISA. This is just another avenue of trying to do the same thing. And I think that the court will hear this. There are several justices who have indicated an uneasiness with where technology has gone and how government is using technology to obtain private information. So I think this is a huge case, whether it's my case that goes forward or another, it does need to get into the light of day and we need to not allow questions of constitutionality to be decided in secret without any argument for the plaintiff or without any argument for those who think their privacy has been invaded.

BLITZER: Rand Paul is the senator from Kentucky -- Senator, thanks very much for joining us.

PAUL: Thank you, Wolf.

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