Marco Rubio Says GOP Rivals Tried to Weaken U.S. Intelligence Efforts
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/16/marco-rubio-says-gop-rivals-tried-to-weaken-u-s-intelligence-efforts/By Patrick O'Connor
WASHINGTON–Days after the Paris terrorist attacks heightened homeland security concerns, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio leveled pointed charges Monday at a pair of Republican presidential rivals who backed efforts to overhaul U.S. bulk collection of phone records.
The Florida senator criticized Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky for advocating efforts earlier this year to overhaul the National Security Agency’s controversial program to collect the personal communications of millions of Americans, campaign-trail attacks that carry more weight in the aftermath of Paris.
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At least two of my colleagues in the Senate aspiring to be president, Sen. Cruz in particular, have voted to weaken the U.S. intelligence program,” Mr., Rubio told a collection of corporate executives at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council annual meeting. “Weakening our intelligence-gathering capabilities leaves America vulnerable.”
The comments amplify the increasingly testy rivalry between Messrs. Cruz and Rubio. Mr. Cruz sparked a war of words last week by questioning Mr. Rubio’s support for a Senate-passed immigration bill that would create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.
Mr. Rubio took the feud in another direction Monday by attacking the Texas senator for backing legislation Congress approved over the summer overhauling the NSA’s collection of meta-data and restoring other pre-existing safeguards on Americans’ personal communications that were changed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mr. Cruz joined 23 fellow Republicans in supporting the legislation. Mr. Paul voted against it, but had offered an alternative measure that would have gone even further to impose new restrictions on American intelligence officials.
The issue remains sensitive politically for both camps because
many conservatives share liberals concerns about the overreach in government surveillance efforts. But fears about another terrorist attack here in the U.S. threaten to overshadow those concerns about civil liberties.
The Cruz campaign didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for Mr. Paul’s campaign said, “It seems troubling that Sen. Rubio would advocate for illegal mass data collection from regular American citizens while opposing extra scrutiny for those who are trying to come into our country from abroad.”
On Monday, Mr. Rubio joined other Republicans in questioning the feasibility of accepting refugees from the civil war in Syria.
The son of Cuban immigrants acknowledged the United States’ role “as a beacon of hope and inspiration to those that are fleeing oppression,” but he warned of the logistical challenges of doing background checks on refugees President Barack Obama plans to accept from the region.
“It is not easy to conduct a background check on someone coming from that part of the world,” he said. “And here’s the problem: You allow 10,000 people in, and 9,999 of them are innocent people fleeing oppression, and one of them is a well-trained ISIS fighter. You’ve got a huge problem on your hands.”
The terrorist attacks in Paris have prompted many Republicans, including some governors, to call on the president not to accept Syrian refugees, given those concerns. On Monday, Mr. Rubio, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there are already elements in the U.S. capable of carrying out an attack.
“We are vulnerable,” Mr. Rubio said. “What happened in Paris could happen in a major American city at any moment, at any time.”
The Florida senator, who has made his more hawkish foreign-policy views a hallmark of his White House bid, said he was open to blurring the current borders that define the region and said his primary goal in the Middle East is to prevent the Islamic State or any other terrorist group from establishing a safe zone to build out their capabilities.
Mr. Rubio criticized the president for failing to outline a more concrete strategy for defeating the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. He didn’t get much more specific himself, beyond calling for a larger American presence in the region. He also called on Sunni government, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, to take a broader role fighting ISIS.
“The president is constrained by not only his ideology on this issue but also by the domestic and political considerations of not wanting to re-entangle us in yet another conflict,” Mr. Rubio said. “
But the truth is, we’re entangled in this conflict. And the choice before us, do we confront it while it still remains largely based in Iraq, Syria and Libya, or do we allow it to expand?”
At a Monday news conference at a G-20 summit in Turkey, Mr. Obama challenged his critics to offer a plan that would be more effective than his current strategy of advising allied militaries and carrying out aggressive airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
If “folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they think they would do, present a specific plan,” he said.
