The Patriot Act expired at midnight Sunday, in what has turned into a power play between the senators of Kentucky – Rand Paul, who vowed to end the Patriot Act, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In this round, McConnell ended up blinking first when there were not enough votes to extend the Patriot Act in its current form, even for a few days. McConnell is now forced to take up the House’s “USA Freedom Act” bill for consideration instead.

With no other options, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an about-face, reluctantly embraced a House-passed bill that would extend the anti-terror provisions, while also remaking the bulk phone collections program.

Although the lapse in the programs may be brief, intelligence officials warned that it could jeopardize Americans’ safety and amount to a win for terrorists. But civil liberties groups applauded as Paul, who is running for president, forced the expiration of the once-secret program made public by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which critics say is an unconstitutional intrusion into Americans’ privacy.

The Senate voted 77-17 to move ahead on the House-passed bill, the USA Freedom Act, which only last weekend fell three votes short of the 60 needed to advance in the Senate. For McConnell, it was a remarkable retreat after objecting ferociously that the House bill would make the bulk phone collections program dangerously unwieldy by requiring the government to search records maintained by phone companies.

“It’s not ideal but, along with votes on some modest amendments that attempt to ensure the program can actually work as promised, it’s now the only realistic way forward,” McConnell said.

It’s not just the phone metadata collecting that expired with the Patriot Act.

In addition to the bulk phone collections provision, two lesser-known Patriot Act provisions also lapsed at midnight: one, so far unused, helps track “lone wolf” terrorism suspects unconnected to a foreign power; the second allows the government to eavesdrop on suspects who continually discard their cellphones. McConnell tried Sunday to extend just those provisions for two weeks, but Paul objected.

The USA Freedom Act would allow those two provisions to continue, while it changes the phone data collection process.

The House bill extends those two provisions unchanged, while remaking the bulk collection program so that the NSA would stop collecting the phone records after a six month transition period, but would be authorized under court order to search records held by phone companies.

The FBI’s use of the Patriot Act to collect hotel, travel, credit card, banking and other business records in national security investigations would also be extended under the House bill. Law enforcement officials say the collection of those business records is more valuable than the better-known bulk phone collections program. Ongoing investigations would be permitted to continue even though authority for the programs has lapsed.

The White House sent out a statement on Sunday evening to back the House bill.

In a statement issued Sunday night, the White House said: “We call on the Senate to ensure this irresponsible lapse in authorities is as short-lived as possible. On a matter as critical as our national security, individual senators must put aside their partisan motivations and act swiftly. The American people deserve nothing less.”

This is a major victory for Rand Paul, who has made getting rid of the Patriot Act one of his primary issues. Now, he’s fundraising for his presidential campaign on his triumph.

Tonight we stopped illegal NSA bulk data collection. Contribute to celebrate this victory >>> https://t.co/9xpIy3FFsR

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 1, 2015

McConnell gambled against Paul and lost this round. The debate over the merits of the Patriot Act are sure to continue as these expired provisions are either revived or remade with the House bill.