Paul says Santorum 'confused' over privacy

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ANKENY, Iowa, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Ron Paul said Republican presidential rival Rick Santorum is "very confused" when he denies there is a right to privacy in the Constitution.

Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who tied for first with Mitt Romney in the Iowa caucuses, said recently he does not believe there is a constitutional right to privacy protecting private sexual behavior, and the U.S. Supreme Court wrongly decided 1965's Griswold vs. Connecticut, CNN reported.

A 7-2 high court majority in the case struck down Connecticut's ban on contraceptives, saying it violated the constitutional right to privacy.

"I think he's [Santorum] very confused ...," Paul told CNN. "If property rights and individual liberty and the Fourth Amendment [do not] protect privacy, what does the Fourth Amendment do?

"I mean, that is privacy," the Texas congressman said. "You're not supposed to have the government come in and invade our houses. That's what the Patriot Act has done. And this is why the Patriot Act repealed the Fourth Amendment, and Rick Santorum is completely wrong on that."

Paul says his third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses keeps him in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and he'll do well in New Hampshire.

"I think we're in second place [in New Hampshire now] and that's a good place to start," Paul told CNN Wednesday. "So, I think we're going to have some momentum and we're going to continue to do what we're doing. It's -- it's a live-free-or-die state. They're very freedom-oriented. So, that message will spread there and I'm confident we're going to do quite well."

He was about 3 percentage points behind deadlocked Iowa front-runners Santorum and Mitt Romney as the last handful of precincts were still to be counted early Wednesday, The Des Moines Register reported.

Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said his campaign would focus on South Carolina's Jan. 21 primary, not New Hampshire, following his fifth-place finish in Iowa.

The newspaper said Paul's 21.4 percent share in Tuesday's caucuses was more than double the 10 percent he garnered in the 2008 race.