Barr ’08

Declan McCullagh with CNET has a recap of Bob’s speech at Freedom Fest. McCullagh calls Barr the “privacy candidate for president”:

Speaking here at a political conference on Friday, Barr focused almost exclusively on privacy and eavesdropping–and argued that both major parties are far too surveillance-happy. “Both of them will continue down the same track,” Barr said, noting that both McCain and Obama supported last week’s bill to immunize telecommunications companies that illegally opened their networks to government snoops.

Congress’ legislative rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is “not about surveilling al-Qaida,” Barr said. “It’s about surveilling U.S. citizens in America.” He added, for good measure: “This administration is the most anti-privacy, the most anti-individual freedom, in our nation’s history, certainly in my lifetime.”
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Barr also likes to swipe at the Real ID Act, a law creating a federalized identity card that’s effectively on hold until December 31. “It was passed by the Congress not as a national ID, which it is in every way except a name,” he said. “It is a national ID for the first time in our nation’s history…If certain people were elected president, it would not go into effect.”

During the Libertarian Party’s presidential debate in Denver, the candidates were asked what they’d do about Real ID and the Patriot Act. Barr’s reply was captured on video by C-SPAN: “Fear has become the driving force behind all public policy in our country…(For the Patriot Act), I’d drive a stake through its heart, shoot it, burn it, cut off its head, burn it again, and scatter its ashes to the four corners of the world.”

Bob shares his thoughts on the recent FISA deal struck by the Bush Administration and Congress. The campaign also sent out a press release condemning the deal without Fourth Amendment protections.

The Bush Administration would have us believe that this is necessary, this absolutely essential in order to catch terrorists and how this sky is going to fall if this legislation isn’t passed that is the argument that they made to Congress and the American people.

It’s all about power. It’s access to information; Ayn Rand, a philosopher, said, “If you take away a man’s privacy, you gain the ability to absolutely control him.” She was correct. If you don’t have any privacy or if the government can listen in, or you think the government can listen in to whatever it is that you’re doing, you have no power left over the government. They control you and that’s what it boils down to. It’s all about power. Government having power to control the citizenry by being able to listen in to what they’re saying and what they’re doing.

You can watch the video of his thoughts here:

“There is nothing more mainstream in America, with regard to our history and philosophy of governance, than the libertarian philosophy,” said Bob Barr last night on Bloomberg Television.

“That’s the way I set up the question with Ron Paul, in fact,” stated Mike Schneider. “If you take a look at what most Libertarian Party principles are, as stated, and then you take a public opinion survey of Americans believe in, what they like and what they don’t like, there is a lot of cross-over there. There is a lot of comfort with that.”

Thanks to Liberty Maven, YouTubes of the interview are available in three parts: one, two and three.

At State & National Election News, Bob Barr repudiates the claim that Presidents are not subject to following the same laws all citizens of the United States are expected to obey.

Doug Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain’s chief policy adviser, recently contended that the Constitution gives the president unilateral authority to spy on Americans without congressional authority. “Along with President George W. Bush, Sen. McCain seems to believe that the president, like the British king of old, possesses unconstrained and unreviewable power,” warns Barr. “This is a truly shocking claim: when the American colonists created a new nation, they were determined to limit both government and executive power.”

“The next president must reverse the aggrandizement of power to the executive branch and defend the privacy and liberties of Americans from every encroachment,” says Barr.

Read the full article- Bob Barr Tells John McCain: No Spying Outside the Law

…reads the title of this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

Speaking to the Clayton County (Georgia) Rotary Club, Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr “blasted the Bush administration on Wednesday for eroding the privacy of U.S. citizens, which he called the most fundamental of American rights.”

Barr was asked during the program whether there is a way to balance the rights of private citizens and the need for the government to fight terrorism. This, after Barr accused the president and defense agencies of essentially duping Congress into granting them broad new powers to listen to Americans’ private conversations without establishing a link to terrorism.

Barr said the balance already exists.

“The balance is the Bill of Rights,” Barr said.

Afterward, Barr said he did not tout his own campaign during his speech because the Rotary Club is not a political organization and that he agreed to speak Wednesday before he announced his bid for the presidency.

He said his campaign team will be assembling in Atlanta in the next week. At that point he said he will begin more active campaigning. He already has campaign events planned in Washington, New York, Las Vegas and Portland, Ore., with more to come, he said.