In a rare Sunday session, the Senate voted 77-17 to begin debate on the USA Freedom Act, the House-passed reform bill ending the NSA's dragnet surveillance program, a major capitulation by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had attempted to force the Senate into a simple extension of the Patriot Act by waiting to vote until the last moments before the programs involved expire. That failed. As of midnight Sunday, the NSA will stop the programs and the Congress will have to come back and pass legislation the reflects the new reality—these programs no longer legally exist. And McConnell brought it on himself.
In an impassioned plea from the Senate floor, McConnell conceded that the looming deadline had forced his hand to go forward with the Freedom Act—but that he still intended to offer amendments to change it from what passed the House. An expiration is "a totally unacceptable outcome," McConnell said. "Completely and totally unacceptable outcome." […] Earlier, following brief tributes by both McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid to the just-deceased Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, Reid quickly shifted gears to attack his GOP counterpart for his handling of the Patriot Act. "The dilemma we now face was completely avoidable," Reid said. "The job of a leader is to have a plan. In this case, it is clear the majority leader simply didn't have a plan."
The Senate will come back to the legislation on Tuesday or Wednesday, and McConnell will allow at least amendments. Whether the two that Paul has been insisting on will be among them is unclear, as McConnell is apparently insisting on a 60 vote threshold for amendments and Paul objects. There will, however, almost certainly be amendments from Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr that reflect his supposed "compromise" legislation that rolls back six years worth of reforms of the NSA programs.