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New Constitution Center Boss Gets Serious With Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert

By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The new head of the National Constitution Center weighed in on surveillance programs by the US government (see related story) on Tuesday's edition of "The Colbert Report."

Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, engaged Comedy Central's faux right-wing pundit on last night's show.

"Let's get straight to the story everyone's talking about," Colbert began.  "The NSA knows what everyone's talking about!"

Rosen, also legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a law professor at George Washington University, is in the camp that feels the surveillance is unconstitutional.

"I'm pro-Fourth Amendent," Rosen told Colbert, "and the Fourth Amendment says you cannot have general searches of information on an ongoing, daily basis without particular information that it's linked to a particular crime."

Colbert pointed out that the surveillance was also revealed in 2006, when people were probably more scared of a terrorist attack, concluding that what we need now is to be more scared again.

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