Surveillance Vote in Senate Is Tangled in G.O.P. Debate - nytimes

WASHINGTON — Since 2011, when Republicans took control of the House, Congress has lurched from one deadline to the next, as Republicans and Democrats have sparred bitterly over funding for the government, the ability to lift the debt ceiling and other policy matters.

But unlike those fights, the Senate’s showdown this weekend over the future of the government’s dragnet of American phone records is not a result of a partisan fracas. It is an ideological battle within the Republican Party, pitting the Senate majority leader against the speaker of the House and, in the Senate, newcomers against long-serving members, and defense hawks against a rising tide of younger, more libertarian-minded members often from Western states.

Senate leaders are expected to try to assemble a compromise surveillance bill on Sunday that can get the required votes to proceed before the authorizing law expires Monday. 

President Obama and his director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., added more pressure with sharp statements on Friday and Saturday calling for immediate approval of a surveillance bill passed by the House.

“A small group of senators is standing in the way, and, unfortunately, some folks are trying to use this debate to score political points,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly address. “But this shouldn’t and can’t be about politics. This is a matter of national security.”

Even if a compromise can be reached in a rare Sunday session in the Senate, all signs point to at least a temporary expiration on Monday of a key section of the Patriot Act that the government has been using to sweep up vast amounts of telephone “metadata.” - Read More at NYT

Surveillance Vote in Senate Is Tangled in G.O.P. Debate

Obama Warns the Senate to Pass Surveillance Law