For those of you watching the MSM the Patriot Act is not dead, just certain provisions having to do with archiving telephone, email, and message calls to servers in Utah. This was not part of the original act. According to the author Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, the telecommunications portion of the act was for calls going to or from foreign sources or by non-Americans residing inside the U.S. Never Americans talking to each other. This was not about the passage of the act but how the act has been used by the Obama administration primarily. Since Bush left we have no idea if he would have called the NSA off but we can assume that he would. Obama didn't call them off and has defended their actions.
Of course, they could go back to the drawing board, put in the proper protections and oversight, and do their damn job.
http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/patrio...-for-problems/