Listen to Paul and Sanders on this issue, and it’s a little hard to tell them apart.

“I think the irony is that people voted for President Obama hoping for something different,” Paul said. “They were hoping for someone who’d protect the First Amendment, someone who’d protect the Fourth Amendment and there are good progressives and liberals in our country who do and there are good conservatives who believe that.”

Sanders told reporters he’s shocked by the breadth of the program.

“I worry what it would mean for American civil liberties, but I will tell you I never ever expected that under any definition of that legislation that it would mean the phone calls of millions and millions of Americans — virtually none of whom the government has any reason to believe is involved in terrorism — would be checked by the United States government,” Sanders said…

“This progressive awakening on peace and civil liberties is meeting up with libertarian-oriented conservatives who are disillusioned with the neoconservative adventurism of the Bush years,” Lindsey said.