USA Today: Surveillance emerges as issue in 2016 race
USA Today:
“The debate over government surveillance is emerging for the first time in recent years as a significant issue in the presidential race, blurring party lines as candidates such as Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders go after many of the same independent-minded voters worried about government spying.
The 2016 presidential race is the first to be held in the wake of the revelations in 2013 by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that the agency engaged in the mass collection of phone data from millions of Americans not suspected of any terrorist activity.
…
‘The Snowden revelations gave the candidates something to talk about that they couldn’t talk about before, either because they didn’t know about it or because it was classified and couldn’t be discussed,’ said Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the non-partisan Center for Democracy and Technology. ‘In the aftermath of Snowden, we’re finally getting a real debate over the Constitution.'”