South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford said that Kentucky Senator and Presidential candidate Rand Paul’s NSA filibuster will lend “a fighting chance” in the attempt to remove Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
“This is really a two thousand year old debate between security and liberty,” explained Sanford in an exclusive interview with Truth In Media’s Joshua Cook. “What historically happened is that civilizations traded off liberty in the hope of gaining security.”
Sanford explained that there is a historic tension between security and freedom, which is what’s at play currently with the NSA.
“I think the problem with NSA is again we know what’s best for y’all,” he added. “I think the Constitution knows what’s best for us.”
[bctt tweet=”This is really a two thousand year old debate between security and liberty. @RepSanfordSC”]
He further explained what’s happening with the Patriot Act: “What I think is going to happen is that McConnell is going to come back with some kind of jam technique on the last hours of May 31. Tragically the House went ahead with its bill. I voted against it. It basically codifies language that the courts have said was illegal, which is kind of crazy. Hopefully we can get it stopped on the Senate side, and we’ll see what happens.”
Sanford also stressed the importance of liberty and liberty lovers. “It’s a credit to all of the folks out there that love liberty,” he said.
Sanford has seen a House not focused on liberty, but he’s quick to point out that times have changed. Now he said there’s “a great group of liberty-focused individuals that do form a caucus,” Sanford said of the Republican Liberty Caucus.
Cook asked Congressman Sanford about his experience reading the classified 28 pages in the 9/11 report.
Though Sanford couldn’t discuss the details of the classified report, he did share his personal thoughts with Cook and criticized the government’s lack of transparency.
Sanford told Cook, “It cements my belief in the importance of government being transparent about what they do and why they do it.”
“I think that for people to trust their government, they may agree or may disagree with the decision, but they want to know the why, and too often people are told just trust us, it’s not appropriate or you don’t have the capacity to know – that’s just not true,” said Sanford.
“Open and free governments are built upon transparency so that people can look under the hood, and say I agree or I disagree, and consequently hold people accountable, and when things are hidden people can’t do that…These kind of things for me reinforce my belief in the importance of freedom resting on openness and transparency in the way the government conducts its business.”
Listen to more of Cook’s interview with Mark Sanford where he discusses the 28-page classified 9/11 report and foreign policy: