Every year, the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) recognizes Members of Congress for their non-legislative achievements in operations, communications, and constituent services. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) was awarded the 2024 Democracy Award for...
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Rubio sobre la Toma de Posesión del Presidente Panameño
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Rubio Statement on Panamanian President’s Inauguration
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Rubio on State Department’s 2023 International Religious Freedom Report
Each year, the U.S. Department of State releases to Congress its International Religious Freedom Report. This report highlights the status of religious freedom in countries worldwide. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) issued the following statement regarding the release...
Next Week: Rubio Staff Hosts Mobile Office Hours
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...
ICYMI: Rubio: Biden Houthi Policy Hurts Americans
President Biden’s Misguided Policy toward the Houthis Hurts Americans U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) June 27, 2024 National Review …Two weeks into his presidency, President Biden removed the Houthis from the foreign terrorist organization list…. [He] also ended...
Under Obama the World Has Become a More Dangerous Place
A major challenge for the next president will be to fix our weakened intelligence system
In February 2011, I stepped into my first classified briefing as a member of the Senate’s intelligence committee. The focus that day was on the Arab Spring that had begun to unfold in North Africa, and part of the Monday morning quarterbacking that day was about what more our intelligence community could have done—or what resources they needed—to better anticipate such a consequential turn of events. Those would be the first of hundreds of hours I would spend over the next four and a half years overseeing our nation’s intelligence services and programs, and regularly considering what more we can be doing to equip our intelligence services with the tools they need to keep us safe.
During this period, I’ve seen the consequences that President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has had on the world and our interests abroad. Under his leadership, the world has become a more dangerous place, our allies doubt whether America is still a nation of its word when it comes to our security commitments, and we’ve embarked on a dangerous unilateral disarmament of intelligence-gathering tools through policy reversals from the White House and mindless budget cuts due to sequestration.
This month, the Obama administration will begin the process of dismantling one such program that has helped to keep our people safe since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This so-called “Section 215 metadata program” authorized by the Patriot Act, which was closely overseen by Congress and the courts for more than a decade, has allowed us to thwart terrorist plots.
Contrary to the popularly accepted lie that this program allowed the U.S. government to spy on Americans and listen in on their phone calls, it simply enabled business records to be collected by phone companies and stored by the National Security Agency in a database that could be checked only when there was a known or suspected terrorist nexus. This program received rigorous oversight from Congress and the judiciary.
Unfortunately, misinformation, fear-mongering and the allure of campaign fundraising all contributed to its expiration, its explicit prohibition in the future, and its replacement with a weaker and untested system that fails to require phone companies to maintain records that we may one day need to track terrorists. Rather than use what power remains in his bully pulpit, President Obama opted to be a bystander and let this program be killed, even though he had previously championed it. Even worse, the White House clearly sent the message to the heads of the intelligence agencies that they needed to stand down from advocating for the program. As a result, the American people are now less safe.
Treating terrorism like a purely law enforcement function and returning our intelligence community to a pre-9/11 footing needlessly exposes the American people to the dangers of a radically changed and more dangerous world. A major challenge for the next president will be to fix the weakened intelligence system that the current one is leaving behind.
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