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Title: Rand Paul plans filibuster fight over Patriot Act (& Ron Wyden... Ted Cruz, Patrick Leahy, Mike Lee)
Source:
National Journal
URL Source: http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech ... uster-over-nsa-spying-20150511
Published: May 11, 2015
Author: Kaveh Waddell
Post Date: 2015-05-11 16:03:58 by Hondo68
Keywords: None
Views: 1208
Comments: 1
Sen. Rand Paul is squarely staring down congressional leadership over surveillance reform. The Kentucky Republican said Monday he would filibuster any attempt to reauthorize the sections of the Patriot Act that allow the National Security Agency to run its mass data-collection programs. "I'm going to lead the charge in the next couple of weeks as the Patriot Act comes forward," Paul told the New Hampshire Union Leader. "We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it. We are not going to let them run over us." With the filibuster threat, Paul placed himself in direct opposition to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who proposed reauthorizing the Patriot Act without any changes. Paul was initially quiet after McConnell, his fellow Kentucky Republican, floated reauthorization last month. And his threat was the second such declaration in two days: Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said this weekend that he would filibuster a straight reauthorization of the Patriot Act—even if it's just a short-term extension of the law. "If they come back with that effort to basically extend this for a short term without major reforms like ending the collection of phone records, I do intend to filibuster," Wyden told MSNBC on Sunday. A spokesman for Wyden said Paul's filibuster threat makes it "clear there is a growing bipartisan coalition to stand up to any reauthorization of Patriot Act Section 215 that does not end bulk collection and make major reforms." Wyden and Paul, both privacy hawks, are longtime critics of the NSA's surveillance programs. Wyden supports the USA Freedom Act, a proposed bill which would end bulk collection of U.S. phone records, although he says he'd like the legislation to go further to curtail surveillance. Paul, however, voted against a version of that bill last year, because he said it was too weak. He's indicated opposition to the bill in this session, most recently in an op-ed in which he suggested the effort could "actually gave new authority to the Patriot Act to collect records." The House will vote on the USA Freedom Act on Wednesday, and is expected to pass it easily. The Senate has only 10 legislative days left before parts of the Patriot Act sunset on June 1. A surveillance-themed filibuster would not be Paul's first takeover of the Senate floor. In 2013, Paul stood on the Senate floor and spoke for almost 13 hours during the nomination of John Brennan for CIA director, in response to the agency's drone program.
Poster Comment: It's time to end the Bush/Obama boycott of the US Constitution. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/241584-spy-critic-pledges-to-filibuster-rubber-stamp-patriot-act
The GOP presidential hopeful joins Democrat Ron Wyden in threatening to block a bill reauthorizing the Patriot Act without NSA reforms.
Sen. Rand Paul during a filibuster of John Brennan's nomination as CIA director in March 2013. (AP Photo/Senate Television)
A filibuster from Wyden — which would likely be cheered by other NSA critics such as Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) — only makes that path more difficult for GOP leaders. With enough support, a filibuster from Wyden or other lawmakers could push the Senate up to the brink of its end-of-the-month deadline and raise the prospect that the law expires entirely.
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#1. To: hondo68 (#0)
It will be interesting to see if Wyden and Paul end up in a filibuster duet. I'd expect Cruz and Lee to get in on the action as well. Chances are, McConnell and Reid will try to come up with some way to run around key votes. McConnell has already done so by bypassing the Senate committee entirely to drag the bill straight to the floor. So he already tried to ram this through. The Senate is going to be more reluctant all around as there was a very recent court ruling against certain segments of these provisions in the Patriot Act. So even if they go for McConnell's (and Reid's) attempt to extend Patriot Act unchanged, they know the courts are moving against the Patriot Act already so it all is likely to turn to caca sooner than later. So they don't really want to vote it back in and immediately have the courts slap the Senate down publicly.
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