At rally in Tempe, Paul lauds ruling against NSA

GOP presidential hopeful also takes jab at McCain

Rand Paul celebrated the federal appeals court ruling declaring the National Security Agency’s phone-data sweeps are illegal while firing up several hundred of his supporters at a Friday rally at Arizona State University.

Paul, a U.S. senator from Kentucky and a Republican 2016 presidential candidate, also continued his running feud with his GOP Senate foils Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who disagree with him over fundamental national-security issues.

“Anybody here from the ‘Leave Me Alone Coalition’?” Paul asked to roars from the crowd on a basketball court inside the Sun Devil Fitness Complex on the school’s Tempe campus. “Anybody here from the ‘Leave Me The Hell Alone Coalition’?”

Paul gave the audience a crash course in search-and-seizure and warrants in England and in the United States. He emphasized how government access to personal telephone and credit-card records destory individual privacy. He cheered Thursday’s news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit had determined the NSA program is illegal.

If elected to the White House, Paul vowed to “end it all” on Day One of his presidency.

“I tell you what: What I do on my phone — what you do on your phone and your phone records — I say it’s none of the government’s damn business,” Paul said to applause.

Paul is one of six announced Republican presidential hopefuls. His libertarian leanings and emphasis on privacy and criminal-justice reform gives him a unique space in the GOP field, which so far includes U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

“You’ll hear some voices, some of them emanating from Arizona, that say, ‘Well, how will you catch terrorists?’” Paul said. “One of them came up to me and said, ‘If the (anti-terror) Patriot (Act) expires, what will we do?’ Maybe we could rely on the Constitution for a few hours.”

In criticizing U.S. anti-terror tactics, Paul pointed to the “homegrown terrorist from Phoenix” who was involved in Sunday’s attack on a Mohammed cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.

“We knew his name — we had investigated him — but maybe we’re spending so damn much time on innocent people that we’re not spending enough time going after the perpetrators,” Paul said. “The Boston Marathon bomber — we knew his name, too.”

Paul, who was first elected to the Senate in 2010, tweaked McCain during the stop in his home state. McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, previously declared Paul the worst candidate on national security among the 20 or so potential 2016 Republican contenders. Paul recalled “this debate with a certain senator from a certain state that starts with an ‘A’” about whether an American citizen could be detained without a trial.

“So we’re going back and forth on the Senate floor, and I say, ‘Surely, you wouldn’t send an American citizen to Guantanamo Bay without a trial,’” Paul said. “And, he said, ‘Yeah, if they’re dangerous.’ It sort of begs the question, who gets to decide whether they’re dangerous or not?”

Paul also brought up Graham, another possible 2016 presidential candidate, whom he described as the other unnamed senator’s “sidekick from a state that starts with an ‘S.’”

“The sidekick says, ‘Well, when they ask you for a lawyer, you just tell them to shut up,’” Paul said. “Really? That’s the level of what we’re talking about. Used to be, once upon a time, we talked about innocent until proven guilty.”

Brian Rogers, McCain’s spokesman, said McCain was not available to comment Friday because he was at a parade that the U.S. Marines were holding in his honor at the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C.

Paul was introduced at the ASU event, which was co-hosted by the Maricopa County Republican Party, by state Sen. Kelli Ward, R-Lake Havasu City.

Ward is considering a possible 2016 primary challenge to McCain, who announced in April that he is running for a sixth U.S. Senate term.

“How about standing up for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution?” Ward asked the crowd. “Yes, we have got to do it. It’s going to take people like all of you to do it. ... It’s going to take new, fresh, bold, fearless leaders in our country to put it back on the right track.”