Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., introduced legislation Tuesday night that would extend controversial surveillance sections of the Patriot Act until 2020.
The legislation, S.1035, would "extend authority relating to roving surveillance, access to business records, and individual terrorists as agents of foreign powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and for other purposes."
McConnell fast-tracked the measure so that it could avoid going through the committee process and instead be placed directly on the Senate calendar, according to the National Journal, but an aide told the newspaper that the chamber will not take up the legislation this week.
As it currently stands, the core provision in the Patriot Act that the National Security Agency uses to justify its bulk collection of U.S. phone records, Section 215, is set to expire on June 1. McConnell's new measure would extend that section until December 21, 2020 and allow the NSA to continue spying on millions of Americans every day.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who chairs the Intelligence Committee, is a co-sponsor of the bill.
The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a leading proponent of surveillance reform, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, was quick to react to the attempt to extend spying powers.
"Republican leaders should be working across the aisle on legislation that protects both our national security and Americans' privacy rights, but instead they are trying to quietly pass a straight reauthorization of the bulk-collection program that has been proven ineffective and unnecessary," Leahy said in a statement, The Hill reported. "And more, they are attempting to do so without the committee process that the majority leader has promised for important legislation. This tone-deaf attempt to pave the way for five and a half more years of unchecked surveillance will not succeed."
A global debate ensued following the disclosure of mass-spying programs by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, and President Barack Obama and a number of lawmakers have called for the end of those surveillance practices, but the latest bill to rein in those practices failed last year.
Now, Leahy and a group of colleagues plan to reintroduce that comprehensive surveillance-reform measure, referred to as the USA Freedom Act, as soon as Wednesday, which would end the NSA's interception of Americans' cell data, the Journal reported.
