The National Security Agency’s blanket collection of US citizens’ phone records was “not really the American way”, Al Gore said on Friday, declaring that he believed the practice to be unlawful.
In his most expansive comments to date on the NSA revelations, the former vice-president was unsparing in his criticism of the surveillance apparatus, telling the Guardian security considerations should never overwhelm the basic rights of American citizens.
He also urged Barack Obama and Congress to review and amend the laws under which the NSA operated.
“I quite understand the viewpoint that many have expressed that they are fine with it and they just want to be safe but that is not really the American way,” Gore said in a telephone interview. “Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that those who would give up essential liberty to try to gain some temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
There are some people who leave politics, and just cash in as a lobbyist (Evan Bayh comes to mind), and there are those who find freedom and grow.
Al Gore is one of the latter.
Let me offer a hearty f%$# you to the corrupt Supreme Court justices who mad the Bush administration happen.