Former US Vice President Dick Cheney said Sen. Rand Paul made the wrong move when he forced the provisions of the Patriot Act to expire, warning that without these provisions the United States could face another attack even deadlier than 9/11.
"I disagree with Rand Paul on that," Cheney said during the "John Catsimatidis Roundtable" radio program on Sunday.
Cheney said the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program was set up a week after the Sept.11, 2001 attacks to be able to intercept communications from al-Qaeda terrorists outside the US to people inside the US.
"It's been a good program. The fact is nobody yet has been able to point out a single instance where NSA has abused that power and that authority. That does not happen. Nobody's right has been violated," he said.
He labelled the compromise legislation, the USA Freedom Act of 2015, as "unwise." President Barack Obama has signed the bill into law.
Cheney said the controversy that came out when the Senate deliberated on whether to extend the provisions of the Patriot Act was just about politics.
He warned that the possibility of having another "mass casualty" like 9/11 is "very real."
Al-Qaeda, he said, has spread and the US now has to deal with the Islamic State, which has become "more violent."
"I think the threat is growing. I don't think it's receding. The likelihood of another big attack against the United States is very real. I can't say where or when, but it strikes me we need to be doing everything we can to stop that attack and capture and kill the terrorists instead of weakening the tools that our intelligence people have in order to effectively combat the terrorists," Cheney said.
He added, "I'm fearful that we've gotten far enough away now after 14 years, far enough away from 9/11, that too many people out there have forgotten what happened and what it's like when it does happen. This is the danger that next time they'll have something deadlier than airline tickets and box cutters when they launch an attack."
