POLITICS

Senate Moves Toward Limiting N.S.A. Bulk Data Collection

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Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, before opening a special session on Sunday to extend a national surveillance program, which was set to expire at midnight. Zach Gibson/The New York Times 
WASHINGTON — In a rare Sunday night session, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to begin a debate on a bill passed by the House to curtail a national security surveillance program approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the law that authorized the program was set to expire at midnight in the face of continuing opposition from Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky.
The 77-to-17 vote was a remarkable turnabout — grudgingly approved by the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, a fellow Kentucky Republican — just a week after the Senate narrowly turned the bill away at his behest. Mr. McConnell, in a desperate attempt to keep the surveillance program going, encouraged senators to vote for a bill that he still found deficient.
“I remain determined to working toward the best outcome for the American people possible under the circumstances,” Mr. McConnell said. “This is where we are, colleagues — a House-passed bill with some serious flaws, and an inability to get a short-term extend to improve the House bill.”
Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who was headed to Capitol Hill on Sunday, said he would block the rapid passage of a bill allowing a national surveillance program.Drew Angerer/Getty Images 
Mr. Paul, whom Mr. McConnell has endorsed as a presidential candidate, made it clear that he would use his procedural weapon — the words “I object” — to ensure that provisions of the law that the government has been using to sweep up vast amounts of telephone data go away, at least temporarily. He said he would decline to let Mr. McConnell move to a rapid passage of the bill, which requires the consent of every senator, before midnight.
Even as senators were trickling into the Capitol from the airport, Mr. McConnell attempted to extend some aspects of the law as senators worked out a new bill. He asked colleagues to consider a two-week continuation of the federal authority to track a “lone wolf” terrorism suspect not connected to a state sponsor and to conduct “roving” surveillance of a suspect, rather than of a phone number alone, to combat terrorists who frequently discard cellphones — while Congress continued to negotiate a new bill.
But Mr. Paul objected, and Mr. McConnell lashed out from the Senate floor at what he called “a campaign of demagoguery and disinformation” about the program.
Mr. McConnell then moved to a second option, a procedural move to take up the bill passed by the House, which he said the Senate would amend this week.
The bill in question, passed by the House overwhelmingly in May, would overhaul the Patriot Act and curtail the bulk collection of phone records, a program that was exposed by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the National Security Agency. Under the provisions of the House bill, sweeps that had operated under the guise of so-called national security letters issued by the F.B.I. would end. The data would instead be stored by the phone companies and could be retrieved by intelligence agencies only after approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.