Most Americans support the federal government's bulk collection of telephone metadata first revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, and they want Congress to reauthorize the program, CNN reported based on a poll it conducted along with the Opinion Research Corporation.

Sixty-one percent of those surveyed think that the recently expired provisions of the Patriot Act, which ostensibly allow the National Security Administration to collect that information, should be extended; 36 percent are opposed to the renewal, the news channel detailed.

Republican leaders in the Senate hope to quickly reinstate the law after its Monday expiration. But even though 73 percent of GOP supporters backed that move in the CNN poll, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul -- who is seeking the Republican nomination in the 2016 White House race -- has promised to staunchly oppose it.

Paul had promised in early May that he would oppose the reauthorization of a the Patriot Act provisions, the Hill recalled.

"I'm going to lead the charge in the next couple of weeks as the Patriot Act comes forward," the senator then told the New Hampshire Union Leader. "We will be filibustering. We will be trying to stop it. We are not going to let them run over us. And we are going to demand amendments and we are going to make sure the American people know that some of us at least are opposed to unlawful searches."

Marco Rubio, one of Paul's GOP challenger in the 2016 presidential race, however, had insisted in a USA Today op-ed that "the government is not listening to your phone calls or recording them unless you are a terrorist" or have contact with terrorists abroad.

"Today our nation faces a greater threat of terrorist attack than any time since Sept. 11, 2001," he warned.

The expiration of the Patriot Act expiration and its possible renewal comes less than a month after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law, as written, had not authorized the NSA to gather up millions of phone records on an ongoing basis, according to CNN.