The U.S. Senate will meet in a rare Sunday session to discuss the future of the Patriot Act. There's a lot of attention surrounding this issue because the act will expire Sunday night unless Congress votes to reauthorize it.
The major focus of the Senate debate involves Sen. Patrick Leahy's plan to limit the federal government's ability to collect the emails and phone records of millions of Americans.
Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell opposes Leahy's plan because he says the massive program is needed to protect national security.
McConnell is offering the Senate a choice: reauthorize the entire Patriot Act, including the data collection provision, or he'll allow the law to expire.
President Obama supports Leahy's approach and says the Senate is playing "Russian roulette" with national security.
Leahy agrees with the president's assessment.
"It's going to create real problems for our law enforcement,” he says. “We could end up losing some major anti-terrorism tools, and I think that that's why we tried to get a good compromise."
However if the Patriot Act does expire, Leahy says the country will still have some anti-terrorism programs in place.
"We can still do a number of things legally with a court order that I think most Americans would agree with,” he says. “But why tie our hands, especially overseas at a time when you're facing all kinds of threats from around the world?"
"I'm afraid that he is losing sight of the reality here, and this is going to end up being an all-or-nothing-case, and they're actually going to end up with nothing." - Sen. Patrick Leahy
Leahy is very disappointed with what he calls McConnell's "brinkmanship" with this issue.
"I'm afraid that he is losing sight of the reality here, and this is going to end up being an all-or-nothing-case, and they're actually going to end up with nothing,” Leahy says.
Last week, 57 senators voted to support Leahy's amendment. But 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster. Leahy says he's searching for those three additional votes.
"I'm trying to tell senators this is a no-brainer. Do this and then let's come back and talk about even more improvements we can make in the future,” he says.
The House has already passed its version of Leahy's plan. So if the Senate adopts this approach on Sunday, the measure will go directly to President Obama for his signature.
