The GOP presidential field wrestled over the issue of the nation’s surveillance programs, with Sens. Ted Cruz defending his opposition to the bulk collection of telephone data under the Patriot Act against charges that his stance left the nation less safe.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said in the GOP prime time debate Tuesday in Las Vegas that Mr. Cruz and those that joined him in supporting the USA Freedom Act, which wiped away the metadata program, jeopardized the nation’s national security against the growing threat of the Islamic State and international terrorism.
“We need more tools, not less tools, and that tool we lost, the metadata program, was a valuable tool that we no longer have at our disposal,” Mr. Rubio said.
Mr. Cruz responded that, “Marco knows what he is saying isn’t true” and said that the new program has given law enforcement greater ability to stop terrorism - a claim that Mr. Rubio challenged.
“There is nothing we are allowed to do under this bill that we could not do before,” he said.
“This bill, however, did take away a valuable tool that allowed the national security agency and other intelligence agencies to quickly and rapidly access phone records and match them um with other phone records to see who terrorists are calling because I promise you the next time there is a terrorist attack on this country this first thing will want to know is why did we not know about it and why did we not stop it,” Mr. Rubio said. “And the answer better not be because we didn’t have access to records or information that didn’t allow us to identify these killers before they attacked.”
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Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky disagreed with Mr. Rubio’s take, saying the metadata program has made the country less safe, and blasted Mr. Rubio’s support of comprehensive immigration reform.
“Marco has opposed at every point increased border security for those that come to our country,” Mr. Paul said. “Marco can’t have it both ways. He thinks he wants to be this, ’Oh, I am great and strong on national defense,’ but he is the weakest of all the candidates on immigration.”
“Marco has more of an allegiance to [New York Sen. Chuck Schumer] and to the liberals than he does to conservative policy,” Mr. Paul said.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, meanwhile, said voters don’t care about the debate between the three Senators, saying they have never had to make a “consequential decision in an executive position.”
“They continue to debate about this bill, and the subcommittee …. nobody in American cares about that,” Mr. Christie said, after touting his years as a federal prosecutor and his support of the Patriot Act snooping programs.
“What they are about is are we going to have a president who actually knows what they are doing to make these decisions,” he said. “This is the difference between actually having been a federal prosecutor, actually doing something, and just doing something one of 100 debating it.”
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• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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