Sunday night marks the deadline to renew certain provisions of the Patriot Act, including Section 215 which allows for the NSA's highly debated data collection and phone surveillance.Â
Earlier this year a Federal Appeals Court in New York ruled that the NSA's collection of phone records was not legally within the scope of what Section 215 allowed. The court however did not block the program, instead ruling that Congress should decide whether or not to continue the program.Â
Now with the deadline approaching, Kentucky Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul wrote in a letter to Politico that he will "force the expiration of the NSA spy program." Last week Paul spoke for over 10 hours on the Senate floor to protest the renewal of the Patriot Act.Â
As of Saturday morning, nearly 15,000 websites are also protesting the renewal of the Patriot Act. By copying and pasting a line of code into their websites, members of Congress who attempt to access one of these sites are instead redirected to blackoutcongress.org. This site includes semi-nude photographs with the hashtag #ifeelnaked. The site explains that the NSA surveillance program is "like a strip search online."
