http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/03...about-privacy/

Former US lawmaker Ron Paul (R-Texas) has criticized members of Congress for their hypocrisy over the issue of Washington’s spying, saying they are exempt from laws they pass.

“There is an attitude in Washington that the laws Congress passes do not apply to Members,” Paul wrote in his weekly column on Sunday. “They can trample our civil liberties, they believe, but it should never affect their own freedom.”

Paul also singled out Sen. Dianne Feinstein and criticized her for supporting the US government’s spying activities but speaking out against them when such activities target US senators.

Feinstein, a California Democrat and the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has always been an avid supporter of the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations on US citizens, but has now become concerned about illegal government snooping ever since it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency had penetrated staff computers belonging to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Earlier this month, Feinstein revealed on the Senate floor that the CIA had removed from committee computers documents related to the agency’s torture techniques.

CIA Director John O. Brennan has denied the snooping.

The problem, Ron Paul says, started in the early 2000s when the Patriot Act was passed and the politicians closed their eyes to the breach of civil liberties afterwards.

“Those of us who warned that such new powers granted to the state would be used against us someday were criticized as alarmist and worse. The violations happened just as we warned, but when political leaders discovered the breach of our civil liberties they did nothing about it.”

“Washington does not care about our privacy,” he wrote. “When serious violations are discovered they most often rush to protect the status quo instead of defending the Constitution.”

Paul said the problem is that the US is being run as an empire rather than a republic and offered a simple yet fundamental solution to the rampant spying problem in the country.

“The answer is obvious: Rein in the CIA; remove its authority to conduct these kinds of covert actions. Rein in government. Lawmakers should not defend Fourth Amendment rights only when their staffs have been violated. They should do it all the time for all of us.”
(alt links to story appreciated)

Hollywood I think said this best:

Quote Originally Posted by HOLLYWOOD View Post
There's NO Rule of Law... when the crime that is charged, not based upon what law was broken, but by who committed it.
This appears to be exactly their intention. Okay for me but not for you. Okay for Govt Guns, but none for you. Okay for Govt Privacy, but none for you. Okay to decide where my kid goes to school, but you must stay in the ghetto.