FARGO (KFGO) - Former Vice-President Walter Mondale is getting involved in the controversy over the federal government's massive collection of email and telephone records.
Mondale is calling on Congress to impose new limits on intelligence gathering. “I have proposed that we prohibit so-called metadata collection from innocent Americans, which is 99 percent of Americans. Mondale said. “We’re a loyal country.”
“You’ve got to be careful of our liberties.” Mondale said. “We’ve outlasted a lot of police states, and while there are risks to openness, there are more risks to censorship and government control. I hope we can keep the line that our Constitutional Founders drew for us there and strong.”
Mondale once served on the Senate's Church Committee, which investigated intelligence gathering in the 1970's. He tells KFGO News that the government's current practice of "preventive intelligence" was "never the idea of our country."
Mondale says intelligence gathering is necessary to protect the nation from terrorism, but says he believes too much information is being collected from regular Americans.