Obama Admin warns: NSAs backdoor search loophole" on Americans phone records collection will be disrupted.
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Tomorrow I will force the expiration of the NSA illegal spy program Rand Paul Kentucky Senator & Republican White House contender said Saturday morning. I do not do this to obstruct I do it to build
something better more effective more lasting and more cognizant of who we are as Americans.
The Senate is scheduled to hold a rare Sunday evening vote on
three Patriot Act provisions mere hours before they
expire at midnight. The late hour and lack of a clean path forward means any single senator has an undue amount of leverage to gum up the works.
Among the expiring provisions is Section 215 of the law
which the NSA has used to authorize its
bulk collection of Americans phone records.
After staking his reputation on fighting the National Security Agency (NSA) to the bitter end and following numerous stalls on several Senate efforts to renew expiring provisions during the law last week the Kentucky Republican and Presidential Candidate now finds himself with the best chance yet to hobble it.
If he wanted to Paul certainly could doom parts of the post-9/11 counter-terrorism law at least temporarily.
It requires unanimous consent to get anything done by midnight and that gives him a lot of leverage" said Nathan White senior legislative manager at Access an advocacy group that supports reforming the law.
Hes got a lot of ideological reason to do that hes got the support to do it I dont think its the reason hes doing it but theres a campaign financial interest on it" White added.
He really could gum this up."
The Senate will return to Washington on Sunday to make one last stab at saving three parts of the Patriot Act set to expire including the expiring Section 215 provision which the National Security Agency (NSA) uses to authorize its bulk collection of millions of Americans phone records.
Votes are possible after 6 p.m. giving senators just six hours before the laws run out at midnight and only two hours before 8 p.m. when the Obama Administration has warned that the NSAs phone records program would be disrupted.
The only sure-fire way to prevent the law from lapsing is for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act which would have the NSA give up the phone records program.
Last weekend the bill came three votes shy of the 60 it needed to overcome a procedural hurdle in the Senate. Many analysts suspect they might be able to get the votes on Sunday since it is clearly the last best chance to keep the Patriot Act measures alive.
What happens then though is still up in the air.
A list of possible amendments released by Sen. Paul or his allies in the effort including Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) includes closing a backdoor search loophole" that allows the government to collect Americans communications under a provision meant to target foreigners.
Another measure would prevent the government from forcing companies to give them backdoors" to crack their encryption and another would rein in an expansive executive order that has been used to condone various types of government spying.
Procedurally if 60 senators voted to move onto the bill lawmakers could have time to introduce amendments and vote on them before voting on final passage. At the wish of any single lawmaker the process could be delayed until Tuesday more than a day after the laws die.
Its at this moment when Paul as well as allies including Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) would have the most leverage.
Paul has said he would not object to moving ahead on the bill if he were able to bring two amendments up for a simple majority vote. If Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) prevents that from happening he would have every reason to kill the law.
Many of those measures have received strong bipartisan support in the House. Many civil libertarian senators would be hard pressed to vote against them.
I think that amendments could be very problematic depending on the amendments" said Harley Geiger advocacy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology which supports the USA Freedom Act. It could kill the bill."
The bill passed the House 338-88 earlier this month with broad bipartisan support.
