The recent killings by the Islamic State — the downing of the Russian jetliner, the twin bombings in Beirut and the Paris attacks — prove that "we can't fight the war on terror on our turf or in Europe," Sen. Tom Cotton said Tuesday.
"We have to take the fight to them in Iraq and Syria," the Arkansas Republican, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Jake Tapper
on CNN. "The Islamic State has the capability to strike outside Iraq and Syria."
Americans should be "very concerned" that the terrorists could strike in the United States — and Cotton introduced legislation Tuesday to extend the current provisions of the Patriot Act to allow the National Security Agency to continue its controversial metadata collection program until next year.
The Patriot Act was replaced by the USA Freedom Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in June. The law places the responsibility for storing Americans' data on telephone companies.
Law-enforcement agencies can only access the information with a warrant from a secret counterterror court that identifies a specific person or group of people suspected of terror ties.
Cotton, an Army veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, said the new law was "untested" in such a volatile terroristic environment.
"I don't think it's the time to go into the untested environment," he told Tapper. "We should know for sure our intelligence professionals have the very best tools they can to intercept as many terrorist communications as possible."
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