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Rand Paul says he wants surveillance reform. Instead, he helped sink it.

And now hes under fire from the civil liberties groups who have been his strongest allies in his war on the NSAs domestic spying program.

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If Paul really wanted to help the cause of reining in the NSA, critics say he could have broken with his party and voted to let the bill move ahead a headline-grabbing moment that would make him stand out from the rest of the Republican presidential field.

Instead, the Kentucky senator the GOPs most famous libertarian voted to block the bill from even being debated.

(Also on POLITICO: Liberal 'hell no' caucus rises)

He could have voted against the bill on final passage. That would have been a completely different thing than shutting down the debate, said Laura Murphy of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of Pauls strongest allies on the issue. Both have filed lawsuits against the NSA surveillance programs.

This type of criticism may become a recurring theme as Pauls presidential campaign blossoms the purist libertarian beliefs that built the Paul brand are going to keep crashing into traditional Republican standards, especially on national security.

His no vote on NSA reform even raised suspicions that Paul just didnt want to have the debate.

Even if Senator Paul had problems with the text he still should have voted to advance the bill, offer an amendment to fix his problem, and then vote against the final bill if it wasnt adopted, said Mark Jaycox of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. By voting against the procedural motion, he said, Senator Paul made clear that he didnt even want to debate the bill.

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Rand doesn't stand