http://nytimes.com/2014/03/20/us/politi ... &referrer=
BERKELEY, Calif. — Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said Wednesday that President Obama should be particularly wary of domestic spying, given the government’s history of eavesdropping on civil rights leaders like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., injecting the issue of race into the contentious debate over surveillance.
“I find it ironic that the first African-American president has without compunction allowed this vast exercise of raw power by the N.S.A.,” Mr. Paul said in an address at the University of California, Berkeley.
“Certainly J. Edgar Hoover’s illegal spying on Martin Luther King and others in the civil rights movement should give us all pause,” he said. “Now if President Obama were here, he would say he’s not J. Edgar Hoover, which is certainly true. But power must be restrained because no one knows who will next hold that power.”
Mr. Paul’s remarks were part of his effort to bring his libertarian brand of conservatism to audiences in less friendly territory for Republicans. Here at a campus that has been a wellspring of American liberalism, he told students he was a defender of the rights they hold dear. He tried to be colloquial and informal.
“I believe what you do on a cellphone is none of their damn business,” Mr. Paul said in one of the lines that drew the most applause.
His stopover here may have seemed like a wrong turn on Mr. Paul’s cross-country speaking tour, hardly the most orthodox place to rally support for a politician who won the presidential straw poll this month at CPAC, the annual gathering of die-hard conservative activists.
But Mr. Paul may have known his audience better than it appeared. The title of his speech, “The N.S.A. vs. Your Privacy,” was carefully tailored as the latest piece of a grander strategy by the senator to broaden his appeal to people — particularly younger ones — who have largely written the Republican Party off.
He seemed at ease, reclining in a chair on stage as he answered questions from a student moderator. Wearing baggy bluejeans, an oxford shirt with a red tie and cowboy boots, he was more dressed down than some of the Berkeley College Republicans who were there to welcome him.
Mr. Paul made a reference to the band Pink Floyd and even compared the Republican Party to bad pizza — that staple of college sustenance.
“Remember Domino’s finally admitted they had bad crust?” he asked, drawing chuckles from the audience as he tried to draw an analogy to how Republicans should adapt. “We need a different kind of party,” he said, noting that Republicans “have to either evolve, adapt or die — it’s a pretty harsh thing.”
Mr. Paul tried to connect with students who say they are deeply concerned about the government’s tracking of their private electronic communications.
Saying the nation’s intelligence apparatus was “drunk with power,” he said that warrantless domestic surveillance should be a matter of concern to people of all political persuasions.
“I’m not here to tell you what to be,” Mr. Paul told the crowd of several hundred who crammed into an auditorium on campus. “But I am here to tell you, though, that your rights, especially your right to privacy, is under assault.”
More than most of those Republicans considering a run for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, Mr. Paul has spent a considerable amount of time courting African-Americans and Hispanics with a message of inclusion and an insistence that his party must drastically change or risk alienating minorities for a generation or more. He has also tested out his free-market economic policies on audiences in traditionally Democratic but economically depressed communities like Detroit. And some Republicans say he is targeting one of the party’s potential growth wings, that of younger, libertarian-leaning voters.
His appearance was another example of Mr. Paul’s willingness to embrace risk. Few college campuses are as associated with the American left as Berkeley is, and it has often been a cauldron of liberal discontent, better known for featuring the anti-Vietnam speeches of Dick Gregory and Dr. Benjamin Spock than for hosting a man elected to the United States Senate on the energy of the Tea Party.
“It’s a bold choice,” Brendan Pinder, a junior who is president of the Berkeley College Republicans, said of Mr. Paul’s decision. “Coming to Berkeley does make a statement.
Robert B. Reich, the former labor secretary in the Clinton administration who is now a professor of public policy at Berkeley, was walking around the auditorium before the speech and remarked that Mr. Paul had chosen a safe topic.
“He’s not in the lion’s den. He’s in a playroom of pussy cats,” Mr. Reich said. “I’d like to see someone ask him about his position on gay rights and abortion.”
The speech drew other Bay Area political notables like Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco and now the state’s lieutenant governor.
“I’m a big Hillary person,” he said, referring to Hillary Rodham Clinton in an attempt to clarify any confusion about his attendance here. He said he was intrigued by Mr. Paul’s appeal and wanted to judge it firsthand. “I’m interested in why this message has resonated, particularly with young people.”
Others were unfazed.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say he’s crazy, he’s wasting his time here,” said Bryce Brenda, a sophomore. It was at Berkeley that Ronald Reagan vowed to crack down on the university’s vocal and often unruly antiwar activists in the late 1960s. “Clean up the mess at Berkeley” became a campaign pledge during his run for governor of California.
In one infamous episode, Reagan sent in 2,200 National Guard troops to break up a massive protest, leading to an outbreak of violence that hospitalized many and left one dead.
Mr. Paul seemed amused by the obvious incongruity of his appearance here and grinned as he discussed his reasons for accepting the school’s invitation. He said he liked the idea of the challenge. “I see it as a way to attract new people to the party,” he said in an interview before his speech. The point of his visit, he said, was “hopefully showing that the message of a Republican with a libertarian twist may well be acceptable to people, even in Berkeley.”
This was not the first time Mr. Paul had set foot inside potentially hostile territory. Last year he visited Howard University, the historically black institution in Washington, in an attempt to try to show that the Republican Party was not as out of sync with young African-Americans as many of them might think.
But his tone on Wednesday — he reminded students that the N.A.A.C.P. had been founded by Republicans and spent a good amount of his remarks on the history of civil rights — struck many in the crowd as somewhat patronizing. Some booed.
The Berkeley audience was enthusiastic, especially when he responded “maybe” to whether his outreach in unorthodox places for a Republican were part of a 2016 strategy. But he stayed away from discussing social issues, and none of the questions dealt with abortion or gay rights.
Next up on his speaking calendar could be before another unexpected crowd: the N.A.A.C.P. The civil rights group has invited the senator to discuss his proposal for “economic freedom zones” in impoverished areas.
After listening to his speech I have to admit my views on him changed. I enjoyed him comparing the Republican Party to bad Pizza and saying it should "Adapt, Evolve or die." I also have to say I agreed with him about privacy issues. I wouldn't want anyone grabbing my phone up and looking through everything I do on there. This is essentially what the NSA is doing. Now to keep this from becoming a blog.
What do yeah olde NSG thinketh of this Freedom Speech.
