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The developments, coming in a rare overnight session, leave in doubt the ability of Congress to keep alive the Patriot Act program that many feel is critical to national security but has also alarmed privacy advocates for its sweeping nature.

First, the Senate blocked two separate measures. The first, a House-passed bill that would shift responsibility for holding data from the government to telecommunications companies, while also imposing stricter limitations on how authorities could access the information, failed in a 57-42 vote. The second measure was a two-month extension beyond the current law's June 1 expiration date, which was voted down 54-45.

RELATED: Everything you need to know about the Patriot Act debate

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who's also seeking his party's nomination for President, led the charge against the program, repeatedly objecting to requests from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to extend it by just a few days.

"We have entered into a momentous debate," said Paul, who said he objected because his request for a guarantee of two amendments on a future bill dealing with the NSA program was denied. "This is a debate about whether a warrant with a single name of a single company can be used to collect all of the phone records of all of the people in our country with a single warrant. Our forefathers would be aghast."

Later, standing on the floor in the hushed chamber, McConnell made repeated attempts to keep the law alive. The first was to extend the NSA's authority to June 8, which was objected to by Paul. McConnell's next attempt was to extend to June 5, which was objected to by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, an ally of Paul on the issue. An attempt by McConnell at a June 3 deadline was denied by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico. Finally, McConnell requested the program be extended until June 2, just one day after the law is set to expire, and Paul objected again.

Senators, who throughout the week generally thought a short-term extension would eventually be approved, appeared stunned by the swift exchanges between McConnell and the three opponents of the program. Gasps were audible.

An exasperated McConnell then took off his microphone and huddled with his leadership colleagues, searching for what to do next. After a few minutes, he returned to the podium and announced the Senate would adjourn and return to work a week from Sunday and try to find a way to keep the law in existence.

"We'll be back on Sunday, May 31, one more opportunity to act responsibly to not allow this program to expire," he said around 1:30 a.m. "This is a high-threat period. We know what's going on overseas. We know what's been tried here at home. My colleagues, do we really want this law to expire?"

By the time McConnell spoke, the visitors' gallery was largely empty. But a small group of people, wearing brightly-colored "Stand with Rand" T-shirts, remained.

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Senate blocks measures to extend NSA - CNNPolitics.com

The Kentucky senator's latest filibuster-style stand against government surveillance positions him as the bane of Big Brother and puts him at the center of a high-profile national security debate as support for the post-9/11 security state seems to be fraying.

Paul's maneuvering is not without risks. Critics, including rivals in the 2016 GOP nominating race, warn his grandstanding is dangerous and is sowing chaos in the Senate that could result in a key spying program going dark at the same time that ISIS is rising, stoking Americans' fears.

READ: Rand Paul wraps 10-hour 'filibuster' over NSA surveillance program

Still, Paul certainly saw as many political opportunities as costs when he spent more than 10 hours Wednesday standing on the Senate floor, shod in sneakers for comfort, railing against the National Security Agency's bulk data collection.

Paul claimed political stardom in the Republican Party by standing up to Big Government and remains wildly popular among his young, libertarian slice of the conservative movement for his ideological convictions.

But he is looking to widen his constituency beyond his traditional base -- and the Republican Party's as well -- and Americans' skepticism over the NSA may help him do just that. Given that he appears to have stalled behind front-runners like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush in most polls of the Republican race, Paul's White House hopes could certainly benefit from a boost.

At the heart of Paul's case is a claim that the NSA is violating the constitutional rights of Americans by sweeping up vast troves of telephone records in a dragnet designed to allow it to later make connections between potential terrorist suspects.

Authority to conduct the programs, exposed by former government contractor Edward Snowden, is set to expire on June 1 if Congress does not pass new legislation.

The House has already overwhelmingly approved a bill to reform the Patriot Act -- which would curtail but not end the NSA program -- so the notion of reining in government snooping isn't an outlier, even in GOP circles.

But Paul is pushing for more reforms in the Senate version -- and he's willing to let NSA authorities sunset altogether if he can't get the overhaul he is after.

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Rand Paul seizes political moment with NSA protest ...

The government has argued it has the power to carry forward with the program under a section of the Patriot Act, which expires in June. Lawmakers are locked in a debate on whether or how to renew the authority, which was first passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, but has been renewed by both Presidents Bush and Obama in the intervening years.

Documents confirming the program's existence were first revealed in June of 2013 with the leaks by former government contractor Edward Snowden.

The decision by a three-judge panel that the phone record collection program, which was mostly secret for nearly a decade, is not supported by the current version of the law, will certainly enter into the brewing political debate over renewing it.

RELATED: Why the NSA decision matters

Judge Gerard E. Lynch, writing for a three judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, said the program "exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized."

Lynch wrote that the text of the Patriot Act "cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program."

The Court did not address the larger question of whether the program is constitutional and sent the case back down to a lower court for further proceedings. It noted that the section of the Patriot Act that the government said authorized the law - Section 215 - is set to expire in early June.

"In light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape," Lynch wrote.

He was clearly concerned with the scope of the program. He wrote the "sheer volume of information sought is staggering."

Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who is also running for president, defended the NSA program on the Senate floor shortly after the court decision was made public.

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Court rules NSA program illegal - CNNPolitics.com

NSA has been spying on Americans for decades
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a #39;fair use #39; of any such copyrighted material as...

By: Liberated Galaxy

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NSA has been spying on Americans for decades - Video

WASHINGTON The National Security Agencys authority to collect the phone records of millions of people is scheduled to end on June 1, and a bipartisan privacy coalition of 39 organizations wants to make sure it stays that way.

The new coalition, Fight215.org, is asking Congress to end Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which requires phone carriers to hand over the call records of American citizens to the NSA.

While NSA surveillance has been in the news for nearly two years following the first disclosures from former NSA contractor Edward Snowdens document leak, a number of Congressional attempts to reform the agency have failed.

For example, Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, who promised during his announcement to run for the GOP presidential nomination to end the bulk collection program, voted no against the USA FREEDOM Act in Nov. 2014 because it would have extended the Section 215 program for another two years.

The coalition includes a range of organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Free Press Action Fund, DownsizeDC, TechFreedom, Fight for the Future, R Street Institute, and Human Rights Watch and the Sunlight Foundation.

Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, said in a statement calling upon Congress to act, of course the NSA plays a valuable role in protecting Americans, but it must and can do that consistent with the Fourth Amendment, which bars indiscriminate surveillance of innocent Americans with no connection to national security threats.

Click here for more from Watchdog.org.

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Groups push to end NSA spying before June