The Senate 
struggled to 
prevent an 
interruption in 
critical government 
surveillance 
programs early 
Saturday, rejecting 
both a House-passed 
bill and a 
short-term 
extension of the 
USA Patriot Act.

The back-to-back 
votes left 
lawmakers without a 
clear fallback, 
although current 
law doesn't expire 
until midnight May 
31.

The White House has 
pressured the 
Senate to back the 
House bill, which 
would end the 
National Security 
Agency's bulk 
collection of 
domestic phone 
records. Instead, 
the records would 
remain with 
telephone companies 
subject to a 
case-by-case review.

The vote was 57-42, 
short of the 
60-vote threshold 
to move ahead.

That was 
immediately 
followed by 
rejection of a 
two-month extension 
to the existing 
programs. The vote 
was 45-54, again 
short of the 
60-vote threshold.

Republican 
officials said 
Senate Majority 
Leader Mitch 
McConnell, R-Ky., 
intended to try 
again, this time 
with an even 
shorter renewal of 
current law.

Whatever the Senate 
approves must be 
passed by the 
House, which has 
already left 
Washington for a 
weeklong Memorial 
Day break.

Complicating 
McConnell's efforts 
was an attempt by 
fellow Kentuckian 
Sen. Rand Paul, who 
has vowed to do 
everything he can 
to prevent the 
renewal of the bulk 
phone records 
collection.

"My filibuster 
continues to end 
NSA illegal 
spying," tweeted 
the Republican 
presidential 
contender.

The legal 
provisions 
authorizing the 
programs will 
expire at midnight 
May 31, and 
officials say they 
will lose valuable 
surveillance tools 
if the Senate fails 
to go along with 
the House. But key 
Republican senators 
oppose the House 
approach.

At issue is a 
section of the 
Patriot Act, 
Section 215, used 
by the government 
to justify secretly 
collecting the "to 
and from" 
information about 
nearly every 
American landline 
telephone call. For 
technical and 
bureaucratic 
reasons, the 
program was not 
collecting a large 
chunk of mobile 
calling records, 
which made it less 
effective as fewer 
people continued to 
use landlines.

When former NSA 
contractor Edward 
Snowden revealed 
the program in 
2013, many 
Americans were 
outraged that NSA 
had their calling 
records. President 
Barack Obama 
ultimately 
announced a plan 
similar to the USA 
Freedom Act and 
asked Congress to 
pass it. He said 
the plan would 
preserve the NSA's 
ability to hunt for 
domestic 
connections to 
international plots 
without having an 
intelligence agency 
hold millions of 
Americans' private 
records.

Since it gave the 
government 
extraordinary 
powers, Section 215 
of the Patriot Act 
was designed to 
expire at midnight 
on May 31 unless 
Congress renews it.

Under the USA 
Freedom Act, the 
government would 
transition over six 
months to a system 
under which it 
queries the phone 
companies with 
known terrorists' 
numbers to get back 
a list of numbers 
that had been in 
touch with a 
terrorist number.

But if Section 215 
expires without 
replacement, the 
government would 
lack the blanket 
authority to 
conduct those 
searches. There 
would be legal 
methods to hunt for 
connections in U.S. 
phone records to 
terrorists, said 
current and former 
U.S. officials who 
spoke on condition 
of anonymity 
because they were 
not authorized to 
discuss the matter 
publicly. But those 
methods would not 
be applicable in 
every case.

The Justice 
Department has said 
the NSA would begin 
winding down its 
collection of 
domestic calling 
records this week 
if the Senate fails 
to act because the 
collection takes 
time to halt.