Rand's Suing The White House, For Us All

Oh, Rand Paul, really? The prominent Tea Party politician and Kentucky senator announced Wednesday afternoon that he, Rand Paul, is suing President Obama's administration on behalf of the grand ol' U.S.A. Paul is suing the White House on behalf of every American who has, um, used a phone since 2006, in light of the past year's revelations about the National Security Agency's surveillance measures. "I'm OUTRAGED," wrote Paul in a press release, "and I'm going to do everything I can to END this madness."

Paul has joined forces with fellow Tea Party members Ken Cuccinelli and Matt Kibbe to file the doomed class-action suit against the administration. The lawsuit will join a number of other suits in the works that seek damages against the NSA's security tactics, and Paul said Wednesday that he expected the lawsuit to make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately for Paul, it probably won't. So far, it's been near-impossible for anybody to claim legal damages from the NSA's surveillance measures. For Paul to do so on behalf of all Americans would require Paul to prove that each and every American was personally impacted by the NSA's collection of "metadata," amongst other information, according to The Verge. And because there's no definitive way to prove whether or not metadata has been collected, even in individual cases, the case likely won't get anywhere.

And is this lawsuit even about the NSA? As The Verge points out, Paul is specifically asking Americans to make a financial contribution towards the doomed lawsuit. "In practice, the charitable interpretation is that it's essentially a petition of protest," writes The Verge's Adi Robertson. "The uncharitable interpretation is that it's a fundraising and campaigning effort."

Paul's press release reads:

I've asked Internet providers and phone companies to join me in a class-action lawsuit to STOP Barack Obama's NSA from snooping on the American people.

So please sign below and join my class-action lawsuit and help stop the government's outrageous spying program on the American people.

After you sign up, please make a generous donation to help rally up to ten million Americans to support my lawsuit to stop Big Brother from infringing on our Fourth Amendment freedoms.

This is not what Paul actually said at the press conference, which is this:

I’m not against the NSA, I’m not against spying, I’m not against looking at phone records... I just want you to go to a judge, have an individual’s name and [get] a warrant. That’s what the Fourth Amendment says.

Hang on. So pledging funds to "help stop" the NSA measures will, hopefully, according to Paul... ultimately just legitimize them with a warrant.

Yup. This guy makes a ton of sense.

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