Privacy is a Conservative cause

At least it is in America. This is from a post on Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ:

In recent years, ... beginning with the passage of the USA Patriot Act during the George W. Bush years, but expanded seemingly without limit under Barack Obama, conservatives have awakened to the threat of the massive surveillance state. 

Some of the leading Republican presidential prospects are taking a hatchet to the Obama administration over the scandal. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has introduced a bill to rein in the National Security Agency’s sweeping powers, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently knocked President Obama for allowing an “unprecedented and intrusive surveillance system” to take hold, eroding Americans’ privacy rights. 

House conservatives have joined the fight, too. An amendment to shut down the NSA’s sweeping Internet and phone data collection programs sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) was narrowly defeated after leadership stepped in to vote it down. And just recently, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.), a Tea Party favorite, resumed a series of briefings focused on the growing threats to privacy and the collection of personal data. 

Even Republican hawks are turning. Some of the same lawmakers who helped usher in the surveillance state, including the co-author of the Patriot Act, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R.-Wis.), are pushing back with their own legislation.

In Britain, meanwhile, the Conservative prime minister threatens to prosecute newspapers that reveal the NSA's activities and our Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister - or am I being unfair? - remains oddly quiet on the subject.