Carnival barker Rand Paul.
I'm sure
this is a totally principled effort and not purely political grandstanding by the junior senator from Kentucky who is looking for any traction he can get for 2016 that doesn't involve Monica Lewinsky.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) and Matt Kibbe, president of the conservative organizing group Freedomworks, are filing a lawsuit against President Obama and other members of his administration over the National Security Agency's collection of phone metadata, a practice they believe violates the 4th amendment. In a YouTube video released yesterday, Paul compared the government surveillance to the warrantless searches practiced by the British military prior to the American independence. [...]
The lawsuit includes Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Director of National Security Agency Keith Alexander and FBI Director, James Comey, as well as Obama, as defendants. Ken Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia who lost a gubernatorial bid in the state last fall, is the suit's lead counsel. In a statement released by RandPac, the main super PAC supporting the senator and his top issues, he said," We have assembled a legal team and we expect to be opposed by the vast resources of the federal government, yet I am optimistic that we will prevail, because we are seeking to protect a cornerstone of the Constitution.”
The most we can hope from Paul's grandstanding is that doesn't derail real efforts by serious lawmakers to rein in the program legislatively. Paul's a sideshow.