Surveillance Powers to Lapse Without Senate Action

Hours from a midnight deadline for contested anti-terror measures to expire, no solution was in sight as the Senate convened an extraordinary Sunday session to hash out a way forward. Intelligence officials warned the result would amount to a win for terrorists.

Senators had only one option to keep the counterterror measures alive: agree to a House-passed bill remaking a disputed bulk phone records collection program, and send it to President Barack Obama for his signature. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opposes the House bill but seemed likely to agree to it in absence of other options, perhaps with amendments.

But presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced he planned to stand in the way of a final vote Sunday, and under Senate rules giving great power to individual lawmakers, his colleagues were powerless to stop him.

Even though Paul could do no more than delay final passage of the bill for a handful of days, it would be enough to force a shutdown, at least temporarily, of the once-secret phone bulk phone records collections program made public by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was unsparing in his criticism of McConnell as the Senate gaveled into session Sunday, blaming him for the Senate’s failure to resolve the issue well ahead of the deadline.

“The majority leader should have seen this coming. Everyone else did,” Reid said on the floor. “The job of the leader is to have a plan. In this case, it is clear that the majority leader simply didn’t have a plan.”

This article appeared in print on page 2 of the June 1st, 2015 edition of Hamodia.