Senate schedules rare Saturday vote on bill to limit NSA surveillance powers

The Senate has scheduled a vote this Saturday on a bill that would scale back the National Security Agency’s ability to collect surveillance data.

The body will vote on the Freedom Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives by a resounding 338-88 majority last week.

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Congress is under pressure to pass a new bill, as the current body of laws that covers government surveillance powers is set to expire June 1.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said numerous times that he favors simply extending the existing Patriot Act, retaining all the government’s existing surveillance rights.

But intense political pressure has reportedly forced McConnell and the Republicans to call for the vote on Saturday.

This is not the first time the Freedom Act has been proposed. It was voted down along party lines in the Senate last year. The chances of passage are greater this time around, analysts say.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) spoke on the floor of the Senate for almost 11 hours last night, trying to inspire further debate on the new bill in the chamber.

Several polls have shown that most Americans believe that the government’s surveillance powers should be reduced, and that lawmakers’ views on surveillance do not match up with the views of their constituents. Many lawmakers believe that data from wide-sweeping surveillance operations continue to aid in discovering, disrupting, and preventing terrorist attacks.

The Patriot Act was born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but the political climate has changed. The 2013 revelations brought about by Edward Snowden regarding the government’s broad ability to gather phone records and Internet usage data alarmed many Americans.