Key Parts of Patriot Act Expire Temporarily as Senate Moves Toward Limits on Spying

The government’s authority to sweep up vast quantities of phone records in the hunt for terrorists expired at 12:01 a.m. June 1 after Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) blocked an extension of the program during an extraordinary and at times caustic Sunday session of the Senate.

Still, the Senate signaled that it was ready to curtail the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection program with likely passage this week of legislation that would shift the storage of telephone records from the government to the phone companies. The House overwhelmingly passed that bill in May. Senators voted, 77 to 17, on May 31 to take up the House bill. Paul’s stand may have forced the temporary expiration of parts of the post-9/11 Patriot Act used by the National Security Agency to collect phone records, but he was helped by the miscalculation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who sent the Senate on a weeklong vacation after blocking the House bill before Memorial Day. Sen McConnell relented May 31, setting up a final round of votes on June 2 or June 3 that will most likely send a compromise version of the House bill to President Barack Obama for his signature. Even Sen Paul, using the procedural weapon of an objection, conceded he could not stop that.