Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) succeeded Sunday in forcing three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act to expire, including the NSA’s authority to collect troves of bulk telephone metadata under the Patriot Act, in a contentious emergency Senate session Sunday, NBC News reported. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought to extend two less controversial provisions of the surveillance program but that effort was blocked by Paul, who ran down the procedural clock and left the Senate in a stalemate on the House-passed compromise bill. "Tonight we stopped the illegal NSA bulk data collection," the 2016 GOP presidential hopeful said in a statement. Despite Paul’s staunch opposition and forcing the Senate to go through a series of procedural hurdles, a final vote on the USA Freedom Act to revive the program could come as early as Tuesday.
