Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said she would appoint constitutionalist judges like her father should she win the White House in 2016.
Fiorina, appearing on
Fox News Channel's "Special Report" on Thursday, was asked about her judicial philosophy by panelist George Will, who noted that the next president likely will make several appointments to the Supreme Court.
He asked whether Fiorina most identifies with populist conservatives, who say judges should be deferential to the elected branches of government or constitutional conservatives say, "no, it should be actively engaged and holding the branches to their enumerated powers."
"In this case I most identify with the constitutionalists," she said. "My father was a federal judge. He was a constitutionalist. I think often of my dad, so I would appoint judges that remind me of my father, whether they're men or women."
Fiorina also she she would dial back National Security Agency monitoring of phone metadata "somewhat" if she is elected.
Andrew Napolitano, a libertarian and former judge, asked Fiorina about her role in helping create the massive surveillance program while she was head of Hewlett-Packard and served as chairman of the CIA's External Advisory Board.
"One of the things you did, Carly, when you ran HP and in the years after was help (then-CIA Director) Gen. Michael Hayden set up the most extensive spy apparatus in the world, one that is capable of intercepting every phone call, every email and every text message of everyone in the United States of America," Napolitano said. "Are you proud of where that spy system has gotten us today or should it be dialed back?"
Fiorina said Napolitano overstated her role, but said that during her time on the board she advised both the CIA and NSA to be transparent as possible. She said the recently passed USA Freedom Act succeeds in dialing back the government's bulk data collection, but added she would do even more from the Oval Office.
"Yes, I would dial it back somewhat," said, but added that she thinks it is a bad idea to give all the responsibility of collecting the data to phone companies because she doesn’t think they have the ability to do it as well as the government.
"I think we've ended up with this kind of hodgepodge that doesn't satisfy a lot of anybody right now," she said.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.