Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and specifically Section 215 of it (which the FISA court has interpreted to say that the NSA can collect all of our phone records), without allowing committee hearings or amendments. And he wants it to
extend it to 2020.
A McConnell aide said the majority leader is beginning a process to put the bill on the Senate calendar but said that the chamber will not take the measure up this week. That process, known as Rule 14, would bypass the traditional committee process. Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr is a cosponsor. […]
The bill appears to be an attempt to thwart efforts to rein in the National Security Agency's expansive surveillance powers, which came under intense scrutiny nearly two years ago after the disclosures spurred by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. A bipartisan group of lawmakers were expected to reintroduce on Wednesday a comprehensive surveillance-reform bill that would have effectively ended the NSA's dragnet of Americans' call data.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who has crafted an NSA reform bill, blasted McConnell for attempting to bypass the legislative process for this, promising that this "tone-deaf attempt to pave the way for five and a half more years of unchecked surveillance will not succeed." He's not alone.
McConnell's also going to have a hard time getting the
House to agree, since a bipartisan group of House members have been working with Leahy on reform legislation. Last year's House version of the bill, the USA Freedom Act, passed last spring
303-121.