President Barack Obama called the Senate on Tuesday, May 26 to extend provisions of the key Patriot Act before they expire within the week, including the federal government’s ability to search Americans’ phone records.
“This needs to get done,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.”
With the May 31 deadline approaching, there was little evidence of a search for a deal on Capitol Hill. The House and Senate stood in recess for the week, and a House GOP leadership aide said there were no talks happening between the two chambers. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Senate adjourned for its Memorial Day break early Sunday after a chaotic late-night session during which senators failed to pass a White House-supported House bill reforming the phone collection program. Attempts by GOP leaders to extend current law also repeatedly fell short, amid objections from presidential candidate Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) among others.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is also calling the Senate back into session on May 31, just hours before the Patriot Act’s midnight deadline. It is not yet clear whether lawmakers will have any new solution.
In Kentucky, McConnell offered no hint of how the impasse might be resolved.
“This is a very big issue that people are divided on. That’s what we do. So we’re going to work it out in some way and go forward. But there are deep differences of opinion,” McConnell said on Tuesday. “We’ve got to figure some way out of this.”
The House bill, which passed by a wide bipartisan margin, was just a few votes short in the Senate on Friday, May 22 and House Republicans appear content to hold off on a search for compromise in hopes that pressure will increase on McConnell to accept their bill or see the Patriot Act’s programs lapse.
McConnell complained that the House bill waters down the bulk collection program that now exists, but acknowledged “they passed it by a very large margin, so that makes it pretty challenging to extend the law as it is.”
A few hours earlier at the White House, President Obama met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and addressed reporters, saying, “The Senate did not act, and the problem we have now is that those authorities run out at midnight Sunday. I strongly urge the Senate to work through this recess to make sure they identify a way to get things done.”
He also noted that the controversial bulk phone collections program, exposed by the National Security Agency, is reformed in the House bill, which does away with it over six months and instead gives phone companies the responsibility of maintaining searchable records.
However, the legislation also includes other tools used by the FBI, including one that makes it easier to track “lone wolf” terrorism suspects who have no connection to a foreign power, and another that allows the government to eavesdrop on criminal suspects who continuously change and discard their cellphones.
At a news conference, FBI Director James Comey said that the bureau will be affected in “profound and important ways” if the provisions are not renewed.
“I sure hope Congress figures out a way to make sure I don’t lose these essential tools,” Comey said.
(With reports from the Associated Press)
