July 26, 2012 11:24AM 

# Rand Paul on the Surveillance State 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

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Sen. Rand Paul (R‑KY) gave a great speech on surveillance last week at [FreedomFest](http://freedomfest.com/). Actually, he gave two good speeches, but the one embedded below is his short 6‑minute talk at the Saturday night banquet. He talks about our slide toward state intrusion into our phone calls, our emails, our reading habits and so on. You know how big the surveillance state has gotten? The answer is “a gazillion.” Watch the speech—complete with high-falutin’ references to *Fahrenheit 451* and the martyr [Hugh Latimer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Latimer)!

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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