Rand Paul vows to fight Patriot Act renewal

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Monday that he would do "everything possible" to block renewal of the antiterrorism Patriot Act over the government's bulk collection of phone records.

Speaking in front of Independence Hall, the Republican presidential candidate conceded that changing the policy or blocking reauthorization was unlikely.

"I can delay it. I can force them to debate it so the public at large can know what they're doing," Paul said. "They have the votes inside the Beltway, but we have the votes outside the Beltway."

Sign-waving supporters cheered as Paul vowed to go to the mattresses to defend the right to privacy that he said flows from the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Sections of the broad Patriot Act, including the one the National Security Agency uses to justify the collection of phone records of American citizens under a general warrant, are set to expire at the end of the month unless Congress takes action.

Paul's libertarian stance puts him at odds with many of his rivals for the GOP nomination, including Gov. Christie, who argue that the surveillance program is critical to stopping terrorist attacks and has resulted in no proven violations of civil liberties. In New Hampshire on Monday, Christie argued for "a clean extension of the Patriot Act."

"Our founding fathers would be appalled to know that we are writing one single warrant and collecting everyone's phone records all of the time," Paul said.

Earlier, Paul appeared at the National Constitution Center as part of a speaker series sponsored by WPHT talk radio. He repeated his calls for de-escalation of the war on drugs, condemned mass incarceration and mandatory sentences, and ripped police seizures of cash and property from suspects who are not charged with a crime.

Paul is betting that his departures from tradition GOP approaches to crime, civil liberties, and foreign policy - he is skeptical of most military intervention - will help attract young voters, minorities, and independents to the party.

"There are very few Republicans who would give them any reason to switch," Paul said. "I do think that I'm one Republican who would cause people to switch."

He told talk-show host Dom Giordano that he would compete for voters in Philadelphia, where Democrats hold a voter-registration advantage of about 7-1. Since 1988, the city has supplied the margin of victory for Democratic presidential candidates to carry Pennsylvania.

"I'll ask Hillary Clinton: What have you done for criminal justice? . . . I'd ask her: What's your plan to help poor people in Philadelphia?" he said.

Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, is responsible for putting "a generation of black men in prison," Paul said. He was referring to the 1994 crime law that gave states incentives to enact mandatory-minimum sentences.

Paul also praised President Obama, who was visiting Camden on Monday, for announcing new limitations on the supply of military hardware to domestic police forces.

"I see no reason to have a 20-ton mine-resistant ambush protection vehicle rolling down the streets of any American city," Paul said.

Referring to last week's deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia, Paul said the national passenger railroad would be better off in private hands than depending on federal subsidies. An efficient company could "prioritize" spending on safety, he said.

"You would think after having commercial railroads for over 100 years, we could do a better job somehow," Paul said.

He mentioned that he was eyeing the median space on I-95 on the drive up from Washington. "We could sell that easement to somebody and have a real company, for profit, put up a fast train. . . . We could get to Washington in 20 minutes."