‘Too dangerous’ to let Patriot Act expire, hawks warn

Two congressional Republicans are sounding alarms about what may happen if key provisions of the Patriot Act expire at the end of the month. 

The measures are “a national security imperative,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) wrote in an op-ed for Fox News on Friday.

{mosads}“Congress must act to reauthorize all three provisions,” they added. “The alternative is too dangerous.”

The op-ed comes amid heightened tension in the Senate over the three expiring provisions, which expand the government’s powers of surveillance.

The most embattled of the three provisions is Section 215, which the National Security Agency (NSA) has relied on to collect “metadata” records about millions of Americans’ phone calls. Civil libertarians say the program is a gross invasion of the constitutional right to privacy and have demanded reforms to the NSA in order to renew it.

But in their Friday op-ed, Cotton and Pompeo — who sit on the Intelligence Committees in their respective chambers — claimed they “have carefully studied this program and are convinced that it’s an integral tool in our fight against terrorism.”

In support of their position, they point to a scuttled 2009 plot to bomb the New York subway system. The phone records program “allowed the NSA to identify a previously unknown phone number for a co-conspirator” and prevent the attack, they say.

The two lawmakers also repeat claims that the program might have been able to prevent 9/11, by helping government agents track down a terrorist in San Diego who had been calling an al Qaeda safe house in Yemen.

“Unless Congress acts this month, three of these critical tools will expire, reopening pre-9/11 intelligence gaps,” they wrote.

Not everyone agrees that the NSA programs are that important to national security.

Last year, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board declared it has “not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.”

A group tasked by the White House to review the issue in 2013 also found the program “was not essential to preventing attacks.” 

Lawmakers are currently divided on whether to reform the NSA program when they renew the Patriot Act provisions.

Pompeo voted for legislation that sailed through the House this week that would end the NSA’s phone collection program. In the Senate, Cotton has rejected reforms to the NSA.