--- title: McConnell Fast-Tracks Bill to Reauthorize Patriot Act Surveillance description: The bill comes amid a bipartisan effort to curb the NSA's expansive collection of Americans' phone records. canonical: https://time.com/3831645/mcconnell-patriot-act-surveillance-extension/ author: Dan Kedmey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-22T23:57:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T06:35:32.838Z article:section: Politics og:title: McConnell Introduces Bill to Extend Surveillance Under Patriot Act og:description: Amid a bipartisan effort to curb the NSA's expansive collection of Americans' phone records og:url: https://time.com/3831645/mcconnell-patriot-act-surveillance-extension/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt777de73a21584812/6987ec6f35ba6f233ac0b026/mitch-mcconnell2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4092 og:image:height: 2302 og:image:alt: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to the media following the Senate Republicans' policy lunch in the Capitol on April 21, 2015. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: McConnell Introduces Bill to Extend Surveillance Under Patriot Act twitter:description: Amid a bipartisan effort to curb the NSA's expansive collection of Americans' phone records twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt777de73a21584812/6987ec6f35ba6f233ac0b026/mitch-mcconnell2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # McConnell Introduces Bill to Extend Surveillance Under Patriot Act > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Apr 22, 2015 11:57 PM UTC  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to the media following the Senate Republicans' policy lunch in the Capitol on April 21, 2015. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to the media following the Senate Republicans' policy lunch in the Capitol on April 21, 2015.Bill Clark—AP  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Apr 22, 2015 11:57 PM UTC Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell [introduced](http://www.scribd.com/doc/262649489/Patriot-Act-Reauthorization) a bill Tuesday evening that would renew several sections of the Patriot Act, which grants expansive powers of surveillance to intelligence agencies, that are set to expire this summer. Among the act’s provisions that would be renewed until 2020 rather than expiring in June is Section 215, the _National Journal_ [reports](http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/mcconnell-introduces-bill-to-reauthorize-patriot-act-until-2020-20150421). The [hotly contested](http://time.com/tag/republican-party/page/5/) authority laid the legal groundwork for the National Security Agency’s sweeping collection of metadata from millions of Americans’ phone records. The bill appears to challenge a bipartisan effort to amend Section 215 with stricter guidelines on what information intelligence agents can collect and retain. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3831645/mcconnell-patriot-act-surveillance-extension/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3831645/mcconnell-patriot-act-surveillance-extension/"},"headline":"McConnell Introduces Bill to Extend Surveillance Under Patriot Act","datePublished":"2015-04-22T23:57:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:35:32.838Z","description":"The bill comes amid a bipartisan effort to curb the NSA's expansive collection of Americans' phone records","url":"https://time.com/3831645/mcconnell-patriot-act-surveillance-extension/","keywords":["intelligence","republicans","NSA"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt777de73a21584812/6987ec6f35ba6f233ac0b026/mitch-mcconnell2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dan Kedmey","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt777de73a21584812/6987ec6f35ba6f233ac0b026/mitch-mcconnell2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to the media following the Senate Republicans' policy lunch in the Capitol on April 21, 2015.","caption":"Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., speaks to the media following the Senate Republicans' policy lunch in the Capitol on April 21, 2015.","creditText":"Bill Clark—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/intelligence/","name":"intelligence"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3831645/mcconnell-patriot-act-surveillance-extension/","name":"McConnell Introduces Bill to Extend Surveillance Under Patriot Act"}}]}] ```