After months of negotiations, pressure from advocacy groups, and tens of thousands of messages from concerned citizens, the Senate failed to move the USA Freedom Act forward for a final vote. While it was a tough loss, a Republican Congress will be forced to take up NSA reform since three sections of the Patriot Act expire in June. The USA Freedom Act—a bipartisan bill with support in both houses of Congress—sets the minimum requirements needed for surveillance reform and should be reintroduced in the upcoming Congress.

Here are three things a Republican Congress can do next year:

Ever since the Snowden revelations, honest (and some dishonest) efforts have been made in Congress to try to scale back at least some of the NSA’s spying.  It’s a complex problem, since the NSA has overstepped reasonable bounds in so many different directions and there is intense secrecy surrounding the NSA’s activities and legal analysis.

The bill with the best chance to make some positive change currently is the Senate version of USA FREEDOM Act, a new piece of legislation with an older name.

After extensive analysis and internal discussion, EFF has decided to support this bill. But given the complexities involved, we wanted to lay out our thinking in more detail for our friends and allies.