Restoring Individual Liberty and Privacy
It looks like everyone who warned me about the Patriot Act was right - we have all been systematically lied to. It is as though we live in a totalitarian police state, and I will do everything in my power to undo the damage done to our privacy, our liberty, and our Republic. As the Declaration of Independence states, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it..."
I intend to start by filing legislation to start systematically shutting down the federal government by restoring the 10th Amendment powers of the States and restoring absolute individual liberty and privacy. I will begin with shutting down the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and strictly limiting its mission to securing our borders and ports of entry and tracking, detaining, and deporting foreign nationals. I will also figure out how to repeal and/or roll back the Patriot Act to restore the absolute right to privacy that every law abiding American citizen is supposed to enjoy.
DHS should focus on its core mission and leave police powers and protecting lives and property to individual Americans under the Second Amendment and local sheriffs and the States under the Tenth Amendment. We should follow Israel's model for homeland security by focusing on behavior and people rather than focusing on objects. This is not complicated. Political correctness needs to be tossed out in favor of common sense law enforcement techniques and an absolute guarantee of privacy for law abiding American citizens.
I regret that I voted to create the Department of Homeland Security and I regret that I voted for the Patriot Act. I never saw evidence of abuse of our privacy because Congress was lied to just as the public has been lied to. I will work hard to undo the damage these laws have done to our liberty, our privacy, and our Republic. I will be a zealot on restoring our liberty and shutting down as much of the federal police state as I can.
