Parts of the Patriot Act expired at midnight, but danger to our liberties remains. According to Ron Paul, the embodiment of that danger is the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
In the latest episode of the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Paul and his co-host, Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity executive director Daniel McAdams, discussed why they believe the operational side of the CIA has no place in our republic and how the dangers of the Patriot Act could be carried on through the USA Freedom Act.
The USA Freedom Act is depicted as reform to government surveillance programs executed by the CIA, National Security Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigations. However, the reform bill hasn’t pleased privacy advocates who claim the changes to NSA’s data collection program and to the process for challenging gag orders imposed on companies by national security aren’t worth the provisions that preserve parts of the Patriot Act.
“If we are to maintain our republic, we will have to do something about NSA and the Patriot Act because it’s absolutely contradictory to the cause of liberty,” Paul said.
“That’s the real danger with the idea of reform, McAdams replied. “It’s is a word that is used so deceptively because it sounds good. ‘We’re going to reform this issue.’ So I think people who are otherwise well meaning and definitely on the side of liberty have embraced, to a degree, the USA Freedom Act because they think it will rein in the secret government. But, in reality, it will actually extend and expand what they do.”
McAdams and Paul raised concerns about CIA and its known and unknown powers. The analytics side of the agency really belongs in the military, McAdams explained. The operational side acts as “the president’s own Praetorian Guard,” he said. “This is like his own personal army that is accountable to no one.”
Paul also discussed the ability of the CIA to orchestrate a coup in this country as it has done in the past. “Just think of the things we don’t know the CIA is involved with,” he said.
“To me, the most frightening thing in Washington is there were black budgets,” Paul explained. “We never knew exactly how much money was spent. I imagine there is not one person who brings it all together. And who is really in charge? I’m not even sure if the president is in charge. That’s why I talk about a coup. And, you know, there are certainly a lot of theories about the CIA being involved in even domestic assassinations. And the certainly now are involved in presidential directed assassinations.
“. . . The first time I heard about an assassination was Diem, because I was in the service at the time and that was when the war was escalating. And Diem was our hand picked dictator of Vietnam. I don’t know how Kennedy went along with this because I thought, why are they doing him? He was supposed to be our friend. He was a Catholic. And yet we go out and help get rid of him. And it was downhill after that, and of course Johnson made it so much worse.”
Watch the full episode above and more episodes of the Ron Paul Liberty Report on Truth In Media.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6kdi1UXxhY