Feel the love.
Three provisions of the Patriot Act will expire at midnight, Sunday, including Section 215 which the government has been using to illegally justify dragnet collection of Americans' phone records. The Senate will convene in a rare Sunday session to try to prevent that expiration, but as of now
there's no clear way forward. And not resolving this could mean the end of the worst abuses in the Patriot Act.
This week, senators have been negotiating over whether to pass a House bill that would renew and tweak existing provisions in the long-controversial law, rather than let them “sunset” on June 1. But if the sunset comes and the provisions are off the books, lawmakers in both chambers would be facing a vote to reinstate controversial surveillance authorities, which is an entirely different political calculation.
Lawmakers may be unwilling to vote affirmatively for surveillance powers that many of them already dislike and have tried to rein in. “I think it is a real risk that if the provisions do expire, they would be more difficult to reinstate than to reform,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast.
Republican leadership in the House has maintained that the only option they will accept is for the Senate to pass the USA Freedom Act, which the House passed with a huge majority a few weeks ago. That bill still allows for bulk data collection, but requires telecoms to hold onto the data. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is adamantly opposed to that bill, and whipped his Senate conference against it. When he allowed it to come to a vote last week, it narrowly failed, needing only three additional senators to approve it. McConnell wants a straight reauthorization of the law, and opposes the House bill on principle. So that's the first barrier to it passing the Senate. That could be overcome if McConnell relents and allows his members to vote however they want Sunday night, which is likely when the clear alternative is passing nothing.
The wrinkle there, however, is Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has launched his presidential campaign around this issue (trigger alert on that link if you can't stand excessive bro-ness). Paul is adamantly opposed to passing the USA Freedom Act as is and has demanded amendments to it. Now, McConnell might be willing to work with his fellow Kentuckian on those amendments, but we haven't seen any indication of that happening so far. It's not impossible to think that might happen.
Here's the other two wrinkles: the clock and the House. The House isn't also returning Sunday night and would not be in session to accept an amended USA Freedom Act. The House also isn't in a mood to defer to McConnell on this one. They've insisted all along they did their work and the only option is for the Senate to accept it. So even if the Senate passes an amended USA Freedom Act, the provisions the Patriot Act replaces would expire anyway. And, as Schiff says in the above quote, repassing these highly unpopular surveillance laws once they've died is going to be a heavy lift.
The only way this survives Sunday night's deadline is if the Senate straight up passes the House bill, clean. And the two senators from Kentucky—at opposing ends—seem dead set against that happening.