The reality of the Freedom Act and why Marco Rubio is a fool on national defense

If one were to watch the ads put out by GOP Presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s super PACs or talk to his campaign staff about the Freedom Act, you would think that he was the hawk who tried to stop empower America’s intelligence agencies with the tools they needed to keep the country safe. If you were to look at the actual facts, it’s the exact opposite. If Marco Rubio had his way, the country would currently have a desperate blind spot that would make terrorism in the United States much easier to enact.

According to Rubio, his vote against the Freedom Act, which essentially replaced parts of the Patriot Act as it pertained to surveillance of American citizens, was because he didn’t believe in weakening the intelligence agencies. He believed in reauthorizing the Patriot Act in full like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell wanted. Here’s the problem with this stance. The Freedom Act passed with a super majority. 67 Senators voted for it, meaning that those who voted against it were well aware that they were making a vote the was nothing more than symbolic. If they had been successful in turning eight Senators to their perspective, that would have left us with nothing.

There is zero chance that a super majority could have been achieved with reauthorization of the full Patriot Act and a super majority would have been needed to overturn the President’s veto. In other words, other than for the sake of political expediency for Rubio to be able to say, “See, I’m a hawk,” there was absolutely no reason for him to vote against it.

Here are the reasons that he should have voted for the USA Freedom Act:

• The majority of Americans want a reduction (or complete elimination) of domestic spying. The old stance for defending the Patriot Act was “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.” The new perspective in the post-Edward-Snowden is, “if you have no reason to spy on me, don’t.”
• About half of the Republicans, such as Rand Paul, who voted against the USA Freedom Act did so because they felt it didn’t do enough to curtail the efforts of the NSA. Rubio, McConnell and company were rubbing elbows with isolationists rather than siding with the appropriate conservative effort of making sure our law enforcement entities had the tools they need to help defend the country.
• As President, Rubio will have to be able to reach across the aisle to build support from both parties to make progress. Senator Ted Cruz was the only Presidential candidate who joined 20 other Republicans to get the bill passed and keep America safe. Paul and Rubio voted against it while Lindsey Graham didn’t vote at all.
• Now is not the time to get too hawkish. Even before the Paris attacks, it became clear that the challenges posed by the Islamic State need a strong response, but America is not ready for the type of response that the hawks are proposing. There’s no need for that, either. If recent history has proven anything, it’s that when America gets too ambitious with its military operations, it ends up doing as much harm as good.

Oklahoma Congressman Jim Bridenstein, a veteran and patriot, took offense to Rubio’s ads and his stance that Cruz is somehow weak on national security.

If Marco Rubio really took national security seriously, he would have voted for the USA Freedom Act and would not have pushed for his Gang of Eight immigration plan.

The post The reality of the Freedom Act and why Marco Rubio is a fool on national defense appeared first on Uberly.

via Uberly http://ift.tt/1OuNMKg