Is Richard Epstein Really A Libertarian?

Buzzfeed from June of 2013:

Two Cato Institute scholars came to the defense of the NSA’s domestic surveillance program Wednesday in a Chicago Tribune op-ed, drawing outrage from libertarians baffled that such work would be promoted by their ideology’s premiere think tank.

In the op-ed, titled, “NSA surveillance in perspective,” Roger Pilon and Richard Epstein, both of whom are associated with Cato, argue that the security provided by the NSA program outweighs any violation of privacy it might cause, which they say is “trivial.”

“The critics miss the forest for the trees,” they write. “Yes, government officials might conceivably misuse some of the trillions of bits of metadata they examine using sophisticated algorithms. But one abuse is no pattern of abuses. And even one abuse is not likely to happen given the safeguards in place.”

Imagine that.