Republicans say phone snooping might undermine Islamic State

A Republican senator launched a last-ditch effort to save the NSA’s phone-snooping program Tuesday, introducing legislation that would force the Obama administration to keep collecting and storing Americans’ phone data until the government can prove its replacement program is as effective.

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, said the growing worldwide threat from Islamic State terrorists shows why the government needs more tools, not fewer, to try to spot plots ahead of time.

“If we take anything from the Paris attacks, it should be that vigilance and safety go hand in hand,” Mr. Cotton said. “Now is not the time to sacrifice our national security for political talking points.”

His bill is unlikely to go anywhere ahead of Nov. 29 — the deadline Congress set earlier this year for the National Security Agency to dismantle its phone metadata program.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who supported the NSA snooping program, said Tuesday the Paris attacks do create a new opportunity to look at what tools the intelligence community wants.

“We’ll be looking at all of that to see how the laws that we have on the books now adequately protect the American people,” he said.

Under the current NSA program, the government collects and stores five years of records including the times, durations and numbers involved in phone calls made in the U.S. No content of the calls is stored, but analysts are allowed to peruse the data to try to spot connections between terrorists.

The program drew a strong backlash after it was revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Congress earlier this year passed the USA Freedom Act to end the government’s bulk collection. In the future the phone companies will store the data, and government agents will have to get approval before they can peruse it.

Critics say that process is too cumbersome and fear intelligence officers might not spot a terrorist plot in time if they have to go through extra hoops to protect Americans’ privacy.

The USA Freedom Act is now becoming an issue in the Republican presidential campaign. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida criticized two of his opponents, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, for wanting to reel in the NSA.

“At least two of my colleagues in the Senate aspiring to the presidency, Sen. Cruz in particular, have voted to weaken the U.S. intelligence programs,” Mr. Rubio said at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council annual meeting. “And the weakening of our intelligence-gathering capabilities leaves America vulnerable.”

While Mr. Cruz voted for the USA Freedom Act, Mr. Paul actually voted against it, saying it didn’t go far enough in reining in warrantless government snooping.

Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said Mr. Rubio’s attack would also apply to Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Chuck Grassley of Iowa — each of whom represents an early-voting state in next year’s presidential primary.

“Cruz is a proud supporter of the bill which champions both the protection of our privacy rights and Americans’ national security interests,” Ms. Frazier said.

A spokesman for the Paul campaign told The Wall Street Journal: “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.”