Rubio: California Terrorist Attack Shows ‘Why the Metadata Program Is So Critical’

TAPPER: "Right. Well, let me ask you about the surveillance aspect of what you were just talking about, because I asked the White House about the — specifically about this Associated Press story. And they say that, first of all, they have access — now, under this new policy, this new program, they have access to more metadata than before in terms of the overall volume. And say that this is a criminal investigation now because of — the attack is in the past. And the Department of Justice has access to many, many years of calls. Are you saying that there’s anything that changed in the recent days that, if it had not changed, that these individuals could have been detected?"

RUBIO: "I’m not saying that alone. The Associated Press is saying that, as they reported yesterday. And, again, this talk about this being a criminal investigation goes back to exactly what my problems are with this administration. This is a terrorist operation within the United States. The fact that they were not told by ISIS go into the specific center on a specific date and conduct an attack fundamentally misunderstands the nature of this growing threat. The homegrown violent extremist doesn’t take specific direction from ISIS. They are inspired to take action. And, for example, how did these people come up with the money to buy these weapons and the ammunition and build the pipe bombs? This was potentially thousands of dollars of expenditures. Are we going to be able to track down where that money came from? Again, they have — they have lost an intelligence tool that was very valuable, because they’re trying to go back to phone companies. Most of — many of these phone companies are saying, we’re not even going to retain records. Others are only retaining them for 18 month. So, even if they have access to it, if the documents do not exist, they can’t put together the broader picture of who these people are, who they have been dealing with, particularly the man, who has been in this country his whole life. Wouldn’t we want to know as much about him as possible in an effort to perhaps identify others that were of assistance in this attack? According to the Associated Press, that information is no longer available."

TAPPER: "He wasn’t on anybody’s radar. I guess that is the question, is, how would he have been detected if he wasn’t on anybody’s radar? And in terms of the woman, she’s only been in this country for two years."

RUBIO: "But that’s exactly why the metadata program is so critical. They — people wind up on your radar that perhaps wouldn’t have been on your radar. So, for example, for them to conduct this attack, I believe that it is highly possible, highly likely that they dealt with somebody at some stage in this process, whether it was a person who helped them finance this effort or individuals that provided weapons. And that’s why you want access to the metadata, because --" [Crosstalk]

TAPPER: "Right, but the metadata program --" [Crosstalk]

RUBIO: "-- about those individuals — go ahead."

TAPPER: "It was the old program during all those years. That’s what I’m saying. If it changed recently, that’s — I understand what you’re saying going forward, but in terms of finding Syed Farook, like, that was the under the old metadata program."

RUBIO: "No, I — yes, right. But that’s what I’m talking about, moving forward. This is not going to be the last attempt to attack the homeland. And so there are other individuals that were of assistance to them. Do we not want to know who those individuals were, even if a contact happened two-and-a-half years ago or two-and-a-quarter years ago? And the reality is, under these changes in the law, that information will not be there for us to look at. And then those individuals could lead you to additional individuals. Metadata alone isn’t going to solve all the problems, but it’s an important piece of a bigger puzzle that allows you to disrupt potential terrorist plots. And these are not plots like the 9/11 plot, where you had over a dozen individuals working together on a very specific plan over an extended period of time. Homegrown violent extremists are going to be even harder to identify. And the one area you might be able to identify them before they take action is if they come into contact with someone that we know is clearly involved in terrorism, we suspect is involved in terrorism. Again, there are individuals they talked to over the last couple of years that do belong on our radar now who may not be on our radar because we can only see the records for the last two years or whatever the phone companies are holding. – [crosstalk] -- The law allows up to two years, but many of these phone companies have already said, we’re not holding onto records at all. By the way, I think those are the phone companies that are getting a lot of business from people who intend to do this sort of thing.”