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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 ...