For today at least the government has far fewer tools at its disposal for spying on US citizens.

Courtesy of the Daily Dot:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) used the Senate's arcane rules to force government spying powers to expire for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, blocking a bill to reform and extend those powers in a tense Sunday session. 

The failure of the USA Freedom Act leaves Congress with no options for averting the midnight expiration of the USA Patriot Act's controversial Section 215 and two other surveillance provisions. The reform bill, which the House passed before leaving town for a week-long recess, would end the government's bulk collection of Americans' phone records under Section 215 while leaving the other two provisions intact. 

At first, things seemed to be moving smoothly. The Senate voted overwhelmingly (77-17) to proceed to final passage of the USA Freedom Act, invoking a step known as cloture, after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) acknowledged that the bill was "now the only realistic way forward." 

But cloture motions must "sit" for 30 hours unless no senator objects to moving forward to a full vote on the bill at hand, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) indicated that he would object. Because of his procedural move, the Senate cannot vote on final passage of the bill until 2am ET Tuesday, at the earliest.

Now before you break out that champagne you should know that it is virtually a given that the USA Freedom Act (Ironic name don't you think?) will easily pass on Tuesday. And when it does it will reinstate the roving wiretap provision which allowed them to wiretap new devices used by a suspect without having to get a new court order for each one, and to track "lone wolf" suspects with no known affiliation with a terror network.

However what will NOT be back is the government's bulk collection of our phone records, and that is no small victory.

And of course Rand Paul awaits your adoration: 

"This is a victory no matter how you look at it," Paul said in a statement. "It might be short lived, but I hope that it provides a road for a robust debate, which will strengthen our intelligence community, while also respecting our Constitution." 

"The expiration of the NSA's sweeping, all-encompassing and ineffectual powers will not relinquish functions necessary for protecting national security," Paul said. "The expiration will instead do what we should have done all along—rely on the Constitution for these powers."

Now I am going to give Paul his due here, if he had not been such a vocal opponent of the Patriot Act we may not have seen the bulk data portion taken out in this new version.

However it should also be noted that once it was removed the act of holding up the passage of the  USA Freedom Act really accomplished very little except to give Senator Paul a little more time in the limelight.

Paul has also politically positioned himself in a place where there are few others that can compete with him. I don't really think that will help him to win the Republican nomination, but it might help him in the years to come.

Time will tell.