RAND PAUL:

The National Security Agency's seizure and surveillance of virtually all of Verizon's phone customers is an astounding assault on the Constitution.

After revelations that the IRS targeted political dissidents and the Department of Justice seized reporters' phone records, it would appear that this Administration has now sunk to a new low.

When Sen. Mike Lee and I offered an amendment that would attach Fourth Amendment protections to the FISA bill last year, it was defeated.

And FISA passed by an overwhelming majority of the Senate.

At the time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remarked that FISA was "necessary to protect us from the evil in this world."

The Bill of Rights was designed to protect us from evil, too.

Particularly that evil which always correlates with concentrated government power.

I put together a video last fall to explain that exact point.

Here's the video: