Sen. Rand Paul to sue over NSA spying practices

Nov. 6, 2013: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is suing the Obama administration over the National Security Agency’s spying practices in an effort to “protect the Fourth Amendment,” he told host Eric Bolling Friday on "Hannity."

“The question here is whether or not, constitutionally, you can have a single warrant apply to millions of people,” Paul said. “So we thought, what better way to illustrate the point than having hundreds of thousands of Americans sign up for a class action suit.”

Paul said he began collecting signatures about six months ago, and says it’s “kind of an unusual class-action suit” because everyone in America who has a cell phone is eligible to join in the legal action, he said.

He added that Ken Cuccinelli, the current attorney general of Virginia who ran for governor last year, is part of the initiative’s legal team.

“We’re hoping, with his help, that we can get a hearing in court, and ultimately get this class-action lawsuit, I think the first of its kind on a constitutional question, all the way to the Supreme Court,” Paul said.

Ultimately, the freshman senator says he wants President Obama to follow the constitution.

“We want them to protect the fourth amendment. We want them to protect the right to privacy,” he said. “We think we can have security, that we can defend against terrorism, but that doesn’t mean that every single American has to give up their privacy.”

The Obama administration on Friday moved on two fronts to preserve the NSA's spying programs, appealing a major ruling against the agency while winning permission from a secret court to continue collecting Americans' phone records.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed the agency's phone collection program in its latest approval of periodic requests since two conflicting court decisions about the program's legality.

The Justice Department on Friday also appealed the ruling of a federal judge who, in a major rebuke for the administration, said the National Security Agency's data collection likely violates the Constitution. In its brief court filing, the department said it was appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.