OPINION:
There are 16 candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2016, but there is only one who understands the U.S. Constitution: Sen. Ted Cruz. Most of the other Republican candidates believe in an ever-expanding federal government, and all the remaining governors or former governors fall into that group,
After the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., presidntial contender Sen. Marco Rubio attacked Mr. Cruz for leading the fight in the Senate in replacing the Patriot Act with the Freedom Act. Mr. Rubio made the baseless, irresponsible charge that this move weakened our national security. The Freedom Act stopped the National Security Agency (NSA) from being allowed to collect bulk phone records of all Americans. But the measures allows the NSA to obtain warrants for specific terrorist suspects and obtain those phone records from a communications company. The Patriot Act provisions expired about a day after the San Bernardino attacks, and were obviously not used to obtain intelligence to prevent them.
I would like to remind Mr. Rubio of the words of Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” If Mr. Rubio disagrees with Mr. Cruz on the passage of the Freedom Act he would also have disagreed with Mr. Franklin. Though Sen. Rand Paul opposed both the Patriot Act and the Freedom Act, it was Mr. Cruz who worked with both Democrats and Republicans to protect individual constitutional liberties with common-sense legislation that also protected national security.
There is only one candidate running for president who can balance national security with constitutional limitations, as he already has, and that’s Sen. Ted Cruz.
JOHN BLOOM
Newport News, Va.
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