Al Gore: NSA Surveillance 'Violates the Constitution'
On June 5, right after The Guardian released the beginning of its revelations about massive National Security Agency data collection, Al Gore took to Twitter. He was not pleased:
In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous? http://t.co/KONSBtTWjc
— Al Gore (@algore) June 6, 2013
Just more than a week later, Al Gore is opening up in a bit more than 140 characters. In a long interview with The Guardian published on Friday, Gore said that the NSA surveillance is "not really the American way." And that's not the least of it:
This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment—and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear...It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the constitution and then classify as top secret what the actual law is.
The former vice president also pushed President Obama and Congress to revisit the laws underlying the NSA program. Gore's stance on the constitutionality of the data collection is not dissimilar to statements made by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in the last week, particularly regarding the senator's proposed Fourth Amendment Restoration Act.
You can read the full interview with Gore here.
