“We are now at a time when we need more tools, not less tools. And that tool we lost, the metadata program, was a valuable tool that we no longer have at our disposal,” Rubio said.

The loss of the metadata program, Rubio, implied, threatened American security.

“I would note that Marco knows what he’s saying isn’t true,” Cruz said in his response.

The USA Freedom Act scaled back the reach of the National Security Agency, but Cruz said the law extended the reach of the U.S. government to track suspected terrorists.

“The prior program only covered a relatively narrow slice of phone calls … The old program covered 20 percent to 30 percent of phone numbers to search for terrorists. The new program covers nearly 100 percent,” Cruz said.

As The Washington Post noted in their analysis, both senators distorted the effect of the law. The new law limited data collection and requires the government to prove reasonable suspicion when collecting phone records, but the inner workings aren’t as clear as Cruz claimed.

For Rubio’s part, the government still has a metadata program, but bulk collection is no longer available. The NSA must use targeted collections instead.

In another exchange, Rand Paul targeted Rubio’s support for government surveillance and questions its success in making American safer.

“I think Marco gets it completely wrong. We are not any safer through the bulk collection of all Americans’ records. In fact, I think we’re less safe. We get so distracted by all of the information, we’re not spending enough time getting specific information on terrorists,” Paul said.

Rubio responded that the NSA surveillance program is already hampered by too many rules that make it less effective than it could be.

“This metadata program is actually more strict than what a regular law enforcement agency has now … but now the intelligence agency is not able to quickly gather records and look at them to see who these terrorists are calling,” Rubio said.

Little was resolved over the proper role of government surveillance, civil liberties, and effective anti-terrorist programs, but Cruz and Paul staked out a mutual position that action in the name of national security has gone too far in limiting freedom while doing little to make Americans safer. For Rubio, national security can only be effective when wrong-headed ideas about limiting programs are ignored.

All three candidates were responding to something that Americans have started to feel in recent years. A Pew Research survey found that a majority of Americans, 52 percent, feel that the government is not doing a good job at reducing the threat of terrorism, the highest lack of confidence recorded since Pew started asking the question in 2001.

Regardless of how restoring public confidence in fighting terrorism is done, the Republicans have an edge. Pew noted that the GOP has a 12-point lead over the Democrats  in whom the public thinks could do a better job at defeating a terrorist threat.