Whether it was technically a filibuster or not hardly mattered Wednesday, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) seized the Senate floor to fight renewal of a controversial domestic surveillance program by doing what he has come to do best: talking.

At 1:18 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, Paul, the libertarian-leaning presidential contender, stood at his Senate desk before an otherwise empty chamber and began to speak out against a National Security Agency spying program that will expire at the end of the month if Congress fails to act....

The 52-year-old Kentucky senator wrapped it up at 11:48 p.m., his speech clocking in at 10 1/2 hours. His aides had said he planned to hold forth until he could talk no longer, but the outcome didn't quite match his 13-hour filibuster in 2013 against the Obama administration’s drone program.

It was uncertain whether his maneuver could be accurately described as a filibuster, whether it would do anything to shut down the domestic surveillance program, and whether the talk-a-thon would result in any meaningful delay of Senate business, which is the traditional definition of the legislative tactic.