McConnell to push for pure PATRIOT Act extension

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he intends to push for a straight extension of expiring PATRIOT Act provisions, setting up a clash with House leaders who prefer a bill that would end the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection program.

McConnell said that, given the time constraints, he is planning to put on the Senate floor legislation to preserve the Section 215 bulk data initiative, as well as roving wiretap authorization and a so-called lone wolf provision allowing intelligence gathering on individuals who aren’t connected to any known terrorist organization.


McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, may allow reform advocates a vote on legislation called the USA Freedom Act that would end the bulk data collection, but he told reporters there may not be sufficient time to do anything other than a straight extension of the PATRIOT Act. His remarks amount to a daunting obstacle for those who hope to dial back the NSA spying program exposed by Edward Snowden two years ago

“The most likely outcome is some kind of extension,” McConnell said. “It will be open for amendment whenever we fully turn to it. The question is whether we can do all of that between now and Memorial Day. And I can’t tell you that right now.”

Facing a May 31 expiration of the three key Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provisions, McConnell is working closely with Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and hawkish freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to ensure the Senate does not miss the key national security deadline. So are House leaders, albeit on a different path that would kill the bulk data collection program on Americans and concentrate it on those suspected of being in terrorist cells. The House proposal would also create new hoops for intelligence officials to jump through to obtain telephone call data.

McConnell and Burr have gone in their own direction, introducing instead a 5½-year extension of the expiring provisions that adds no new privacy safeguards. They argue that the sort of revisions being sought by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Senate liberals such as Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and libertarians like Mike Lee (R-Utah) would return law enforcement to the days before Sept. 11, 2001, and make it harder to crack down on national security threats.

“What the American people ask us to do is to put in place … a mechanism to allow the intelligence community to do their job and keep Americans safe without infringing on any of their rights,” Burr said in an interview. The bill being offered by reformers, Burr said, would put the intelligence community in a place “where we can’t connect dots” of terrorists plots.

Opponents of McConnell and Burr’s approach — including those in their own party — say a pure PATRIOT Act extension lacks the votes needed to pass in this Congress and be signed into law.

“Anyone who is looking at this honestly has to acknowledge that the straight reauthorization — the so-called clean reauthorization — is utterly unrealistic,” Lee said. “There simply are not 218 votes in the House to do that, and there are not 60 votes in Senate to do that.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who tried to pass Leahy’s NSA reform bill late last year only to see McConnell successfully filibuster the legislation, concurred.

“The wise thing to do would be to pass [the House] bill because I think there’s sufficient votes in the Democratic and Republican caucus in the Senate to do just that,” Reid said on Tuesday. “It’s going to be extremely hard for Sen. McConnell, who said he wants a five-year extension, to get that done.”

Reid has urged McConnell to back off his push for new trade deals to confront the expiring FISA provisions, but the calendar may be McConnell’s friend, particularly if the reformers are unable to succeed in the House next week. Backed up against a deadline as Congress nears a Memorial Day recess, lawmakers will not want to blow a major national security deadline and might feel pressure to support a PATRIOT Act extension of some sort.

Facing a potential showdown, McConnell has tapped Cotton to persuade Republican freshmen to support a clean bill. Cotton, who met with key administration officials to help build his case, brought together junior lawmakers and senior intelligence officials for a briefing last week.

GOP Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana were in attendance, as was Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who seemed receptive to the intelligence community’s arguments.

“I’m a proponent of what the intelligence community is doing to protect us,” Sasse said after the briefing.

But the biggest proponents of reform are also trying to use the clock to their advantage — banking that lawmakers will see a clean bill as untenable and agree to new reforms, lest key national security authorizations disappear completely on June 1. That’s prompted USA Freedom sponsors like Lee and Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) to take their time in pushing the bill — meeting mostly informally with their colleagues instead of launching a major whip operation.

“Mike and I believe that if it’s a good idea, it’s gonna be attractive. We do believe this is a good idea. So we think we do have some time to let this settle in,” Heller said. “Most senators, I think, are really seriously considering this. This isn’t a pressure-filled process by any means.”

Lee argued the bill has been made more palatable for Senate Republicans, who rejected a previous version of the USA Freedom Act in December. Bill authors made concessions to some Republicans, he said, like weakening a part of the bill that created a panel of experts to advise the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on tough privacy questions, he said.

“You have to remember that Mitch McConnell has to do something before June 1,” Lee said. “Something has to happen. Even though this might not be his first preference, I think he would rather have something that reauthorizes but reforms Section 215 than he would nothing. He’s a practical man.”