A total of 19 months after NSA    contractor Edward Snowden disclosed details of the National    Security Agencys massive surveillance program, the debate has    simmered down and a legislative fix looks unlikely.  
    At the heart of Snowdens disclosures    was that the NSA has access to meta-data of millions of phone    calls and is also able to access emails, transcripts from    online chats and troves of other data directly from internet    companies.  
    While several bills have been introduced and even voted on in    Congress, a legislative fix looks unlikely.  
    In July of 2013, the Amash-Conyers Amendment, sponsored by    Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, and Rep. John Conyers,    D-Michigan, would have effectively ended NSA collection of    data, but narrowly failed the House of Representatives by a    vote of 217-205. 211 votes were needed for the bill to pass    that day.  
    More recently, the USA Freedom Act, which would have made    some reforms passed the House by a vote of 303-121 in May.    Amash sponsored the original bill, but voted against it because    it was watered down after changes were made and in his    opinion, did not go far enough in reforms. While it passed the    House, it failed in the Senate in November, when it could not    receive 60 votes to move forward.  
    One of the bills sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont,    blamed the failure on other Senators who were fear mongering,    thus stalling debate on the bill.  
    The program has seen some challenges in court. Several district    courts have heard the case against the program, one judge in    the D.C. district court called the program likely    unconstitutional and almost Orwellian, but other courts have    issued opinions in favor of the program.  
    Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science at Iowa State,    said the court challenges will likely not spur any changes,    rather it is up to Congress.  
    Itll be up to Congress. At the root of this is application of    the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is an act of    Congress, Deam said. Almost all the issues surrounding things    that have been leaked are connected to FISA, so to the extent    that people are going to react to that, theyre going to have    to [make changes] through legislation.  
    Several students at Iowa State said they do not approve of the    program.  
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As chances of NSA reform fade, opinions remain strong