The Patriot Act is controversial. Supporters say it's critical to America's national security. Opponents say parts of it go too far, threatening Americans' privacy. It expires on June 1st. The House of Representatives has passed a bill that keep in place and President Obama has pushed for the program to be renewed. But its extension was blocked in the Senate on Saturday. And if the Senate doesn't pass it on May 31st, the law could expire.

 

It took just one month after the events of 9-11 for the Patriot Act to zoom through Congress and get signed into law by President George W. Bush, giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies sweeping powers to thwart terrorist plots.

 

"It will improve our nation's security, while we safeguard the civil liberties of our people."

 

It would do much more. Americans didn't know it at that time, but the law would give the NSA access to the private information of millions of U.S. citizens.

 

I think it's unconstitutional. The courts have not held that, but I think this is exactly why the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent that.

 

But it was former NSA contractor Edward Snowden who blew the debate wide open in 2013, when he leaked a trove of classified documents that revealed the extent of the NSA's dragnet surveillance programs.

 

Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the NSA collects cellphone data on every single cellphone in America.

 

Who you called, when you called, what phone number you called from, what phone number you called, how long you were on the phone.

 

You can take pieces of information and piece together a lot of information about somebody.

 

They can discern their age, their sex, their religion, their level of political activity, their political leanings and so forth.

 

They can know, for example, whether an American called a psychiatrist three times in 36 hours twice after midnight. That is a lot of private information.

 

How does it work? By petitioning a secret court known as FISA, the NSA can access the records of large phone companies such as Verizon. Revelations sparked public outrage, setting off efforts to rein in the government's broad power.

 

When I asked that one of our rare open sessions, whether the government collected any type of data at all, the director answered falsely.

 

Does the NSA collect any type of data at all, on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

 

No, sir. It does not. Not wittingly.

 

President Obama pledged to reform the agency but has stopped short of ending the NSA's collection of bulk data.  

 

And for our intelligence community to be effective over the long haul, we must maintain the trust of the American people and people around the world.

 

Instead, he passed the buck to Congress, where reform efforts are stalling. The House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan reform bill, but Senate opponents are citing terror threats to keep the Patriot Act intact.

 

The expiring provisions of FISA are ideally suited for the terrorist threat we face in 2015.

 

That's despite the fact that multiple reviews haven't found any instance where that program alone thwarted a terror plot.

 

For now, the tug-of-war between national security and civil liberties continues.