Ted Cruz on Homeland Security

Provide our veterans the care they have been promised

• Ted Cruz is committed to honoring our veterans, and providing them the care they have been promised.
• The mismanagement in the VA is unacceptable. We should expand options for our service members' health care so they have more choices and more immediate service.
• A Cruz administration will bring more accountability to the VA and provide greater options for our veterans.

Snowden guilty of treason, but exposed massive surveillance

CRUZ: As someone who spent much of his life in law enforcement, I believe you should start with the facts and evidence first before ending up with the verdict. When the news first broke of the US government engaging in massive surveillance on American citizens, that was a very troubling development, and it's why the Congress acted to correct it. Since then, the evidence is clear that Snowden committed treason. What Snowden did made it easier for terrorists to avoid detection. And Snowden's behavior afterwards--he fled to Russia, he fled to China--indicates that he was not a whistleblower, but instead he was undermining the ability to defend this country.

Increase armed forces to 1.4 million troops

Likewise the Air Force. The Air Force has been reduced to about 4,000 planes. We need to increase that to a minimum of 6,000 planes so that we can project power, and use our air power superiority.

The Navy: We've got 272 ships, the least we've had since 1917, literally a century ago was the last time we had a navy with this few ships. We need to increase that to a minimum of 350 ships.

And, we need an overall force level of 1.4 million troops at a minimum [up from the current level of 1.3 million active personnel].

Waterboarding isn't torture; but not for low-level officers

CRUZ: Well, under the definition of torture, no, it's not. Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.

Q: As president, would you bring it back?

CRUZ: I would not bring it back in any sort of widespread use. And indeed, I joined with Senator McCain in legislation that would prohibit line officers from employing it because I think bad things happen when enhanced interrogation is employed at lower levels. But when it comes to keeping this country safe, if it were necessary to, say, prevent a city from facing an imminent terrorist attack, you can rest assured that I would use whatever enhanced interrogation methods we could.

Torture is wrong, unambiguously; America does not need it

Last year Congress enshrined a torture ban into federal law: In June, the Senate voted 78-21 to approve the McCain-Feinstein amendment. Cruz backed the amendment.

The McCain-Feinstein amendment requires that all interrogation comply with the Army Field Manual, a publicly available document that forbids waterboarding as well as the use of electric shocks, dogs, nudity, hypothermia and mock executions. All were elements of the CIA's interrogation program in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Americans who join ISIS forfeit their citizenship

On day one, rip to shreds the Iranian nuclear deal

Label the enemy that Obama won't: radical Islamic terrorists

Benghazi: administration knew right away it was terrorism

The administration's feckless response to Benghazi was emblematic of President Obama's long-standing approach to radical Islamic terrorism--three words that almost never enter his vocabulary in the same sentence. In his worldview, the real root problem behind terrorism is disaffected youth who have been antagonized by American and Western imperialism. He and his administration dogmatically refuse to call terrorism "Islamic" or "Islamist," nor will they reference "jihad."

No more domestic BRAC until overseas BRAC closures

Military sex abuse victims can't trust commander as arbiter

I signed onto the bill as a cosponsor. The truth is that too many victims fear that their commanders cannot be objective about the men and women in their command. Nor can they know the ins and outs of sexual assault, as an experienced military prosecutor does. Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany have made reforms similar to the ones Gillibrand put forward. The result was a marked improvement in how cases of sexual assault are reported and prosecuted.

Constitution disallows drone strikes on US citizens in US

Only then did Holder say 'no.' Perhaps this reflected the view of the left that the Constitution imposes no meaningful restraints on government power other than whatever the restraints of propriety might be. There is a role for drones in military operations overseas. There may also be a legitimate role for drones to act with deadly force to prevent an imminent threat in the US, like Pearl Harbor. But there is no plausible argument under the Bill of Rights that the federal government has the authority to use a drone on US soil to target with lethal force a U.S. citizen who poses no immediate danger to the lives of other Americans.

American Exceptionalism: we liberate; others subjugate

Many more questions remain about Benghazi

• Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi?
• During the attacks, were any military assets ordered to stand down?
• If the secretary of defense thought there was "no question" this was a coordinated terrorist attack, why did Secretary Clinton and Pres. Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a "spontaneous demonstration" about an Internet video?
• Why did the FBI release pictures of militants taken the day of the attack only eight months after the fact?
• Why have none of the survivors testified to Congress?
• Why is the administration apparently unaware of the whistle-blowers who have been attempting to tell their stories?
• When was Pres. Obama told about the murder of our ambassador? About the murder of all 4 Americans? What did he do in response?

Torture was rightly outlawed, but keep tactics classified

Like Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio weighed in with one of the strongest responses, in a joint statement with Idaho's Sen. Jim Risch, calling the release of the report "reckless and irresponsible" and demanding a more current detention and interrogation policy.

Americans who join ISIS should be barred from coming home

Vital role for deploying military force abroad

"I don't agree with him on foreign policy," Cruz said then. "I think U.S. leadership is critical in the world.˙And I agree with him that we should be very reluctant to deploy military force abroad. But I think there is a vital role, just as Ronald Reagan did."

Paul went on to defend his foreign policy, which tends to be less interventionist than other Republicans': "I think on a lot of these issues, yes, that I'm well within the Republican tradition," Paul said.

Suspend Russia from G8 & withdraw from arms control treaties

• The US should urge the G8 to suspend Russia immediately on the grounds that it is not contributing to a civil international order [based on the Ukraine invasion].
• Congress should start a formal review of the options for US withdrawal from arms control treaties with Russia.
• The secretary of defense should consider the immediate restoration of the full missile defense installations originally planned for Poland and the Czech Republic that were canceled by the Obama administration in 2009.
• The president should immediately offer the government of Ukraine in Kiev a free trade agreement indicating that goods are welcome in the US, and explore other options to assist them in their economic recovery that are consistent with free market principles, including access to US energy exports and assistance to develop Ukraine's own energy resources so as to allow them to be independent of energy blackmail by Russia.

Opposes TSA and National Defense Authorization Act

Civil Liberties
• Opposes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
• Opposes TSA
• Opposes SOPA and other internet censorship

Fierce advocate of recruiting and growing the military

Ted authored an amicus brief in FAIR v. Rumsfeld successfully defending the federal Solomon Amendment, which requires universities receiving federal funds to grant military recruiters equal access to campuses.

Supports banning military gay marriage.

Christian Coalition publishes a number of special voter educational materials including the Christian Coalition Voter Guides, which provide voters with critical information about where candidates stand on important faith and family issues. The Christian Coalition Voters Guide summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: "Prohibiting the military from forcing chaplains to perform same-sex marriages"

Sponsored opposing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.

Congressional Summary:Expressing the conditions for the US becoming a signatory to the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

• WHEREAS the ATT poses significant risks to the national security, foreign policy, and economic interests of the US as well as to the constitutional rights of US citizens and US sovereignty;
• WHEREAS the ATT fails to expressly recognize the fundamental, individual right to keep and to bear arms;
• WHEREAS the ATT places free democracies and totalitarian regimes on a basis of equality, recognizing their equal right to transfer arms, and is thereby dangerous to the security of the US;
• WHEREAS the ATT will create opportunities to engage in 'lawfare' against the US via the misuse of the treaty's tribunals;
• WHEREAS the ATT could hinder the US from fulfilling its strategic and moral commitments to provide arms to allies such as Taiwan & Israel;
• Now, therefore, be it RESOLVED that--

1. the President should not sign the Arms Trade Treaty, and that the Senate should not ratify the ATT; and
2. that no Federal funds should be authorized to implement the ATT.

Opponent's argument against bill:(United Nations press release, June 3, 2013):

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon str

No transfers of Gitmo prisoners to US or abroad.

Congressional Summary: To extend and enhance limitations on the transfer or release of individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay. No amounts appropriated for any agency of the US Government may be used, for two years, to construct or modify any facility in the US, to house an individual detained at Guantanamo.

Proponents reasons for voting YEA: Rep. WALORSKI: 21 terrorists have been released just in November alone to foreign countries. This measure would repeal current law that has allowed the administration to transfer prisoners to foreign countries and reduce the population at GTMO down to 127. Detainees at GTMO pose a real threat to our national security. HR 401 would prohibit any detainee transfers to Yemen. Yemen's branch of al Qaeda was founded by former GTMO detainees. We cannot risk trusting the world's most dangerous terrorists to its most dangerous places, nor should we simply cut them loose in rich, stable countries with no security safeguards in place.

Opponents reasons for voting NAY: (CloseGuantanamo.org article, Jan. 2015): The prison at Guantanamo Bay has been open for 13 years. In 2009, President Obama pledged to close Guantanamo within a year. Yet it remains open, undermining America's values and national security. Almost half of the remaining 122 prisoners--55 men in total--were cleared for release in 2010 through 2013. Some of these men were previously cleared by the Bush Administration--some as long ago as 2004. It is unacceptable that the U.S. government continues to hold men that its own national security experts have recommended for release or transfer, and that Congress has intervened to maintain this deplorable state of affairs. We call for the immediate closure of Guantanamo. Guantanamo harms our nation every day it stays open, and it continues to serve as a potent symbol for terrorist recruitment.