Patriot ActClapper: Congress would be blamed if Section 215 is not renewed -- and “untoward incident” occurred

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said that if Congress failed to reauthorize a controversial provision of the Patriot Act by June, then lawmakers who opposed the renewal of the provision – Section215 – would bear the blame if a terrorist attack, which could have been prevented by actions Section 215 permits, happened.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Clapper stressed his support for renewing Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the FBI and NSA to collect domestic phone metadata. The law is set to expire on 1 June, and some lawmakers say that they would support the renewal of the Patriot Act only if Section 215 is removed.

The Guardian reports that Clapper said that if Congress decided not to renew the Patriot Act, or decided to renew it without Section 215, and an “untoward incident” occurred as a result, he hopes “everyone involved in that decision assumes responsibility” and does not just blame the intelligence community.

Clapper, however, did say he supported the modification to Section 215 proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) last year. Leahy’s proposal shifts responsibility for retaining phone records from the FBI to the phone companies. The proposed change failed to receive the required supermajority in the Senate in 2014, with forty-one Republicans and one Democrat opposing it.

Clapper did not discuss the details of Leahy’s reform, which would also include regulating how long phone companies must retain these records. He noted, though, that he preferred for phone companies to retain the information for longer, rather than shorter, period. Clapper compared the Section 215 to buying homeowner’s insurance, saying “my house has never burned down but I buy fire insurance just in case.”

In the question-and-answer period which followed his presentation, Clapper strongly rebutted the criticism of President Barack Obama for refusing to use the phrase “Islamic terrorism.” Clapper noted that Obama has to speak to “a larger audience of 1.6 billion Muslims.” In contrast, he noted that the intelligence community focuses on “way less than 1 percent” of that number, and said they simply “call them what they call themselves.” Clapper emphasized that one of the important priorities in the conflict with ISIS is to mount “a very robust effort at a counter narrative” against the slick, manipulative propaganda of the terrorist group.