Rand Paul Aims to Derail the NSA

Rand Paul attempted to derail efforts to reauthorize bulk collection of American phone records in a dramatic showdown on Wednesday by taking over the floor of the Senate hours before a weekend deadline to renew the justification of the National Security Agency’s dragnet surveillance. The Kentucky senator and Republican presidential candidate had pledged to filibuster any efforts to extend the lifespan of a key 2001 surveillance authority that the NSA has used since 2006 to collect Americans’ phone data in bulk. The Guardian exposed the dragnet in June 2013 thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden. A key provision of the Patriot Act, known as Section 215, is set to expire on 1 June, and the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last week to ban mass collection of Americans’ phone records by passing the USA Freedom Act – legislation that Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, staunchly opposes.