First, shocker, despite all the braying and complaining over the past years the standard historical path has continued just as it has every other time despite the hyperbolic driven cries of those that opposed PATRIOT. The USA PATRIOT Act was hardly the first law or government action enacted during a time where Security had a higher premium put on it than Freedom and it won't be the last. This tradition is a bipartisan one, be it Lincoln or Roosevelt or Bush. And every time the plethora of mechanisms that are in place...the free speaking public, the free media, the democratic process, the constitutional checks and balances, and the way in which laws themselves are written with regards to sunsets...begin to strip away at these things as the balance shifts back the other way and the need for action is superceded by the need for principles.
Second, its this kind of thing that is exactly why we SHOULDN'T remove PATRIOT alone. Even a staunchly held liberal like Russ Fiengold had admitted that over 90% of the Bill is needed, useless, good legislation. Over the past years we have proof time and time again that between the three branches of government...be it legislators not reupping sections, courts stripping away sections, or excutive not enforcing/using sections...that the questionable and/or flat out unconstitutional parts of PATRIOT will and can be stripped out from the Bill. It is better to let this happen and allow a large amount of our intelligence, defense, and general law actually remain updated to an age where a "Smartphone" isn't the work of science fiction writers and where email isn't so rare that the press wonders what an @ means.
The vast majority of Patriot is extremely sound if not needed legislation that, due to its politicized nature now of being tied to Patriot, would likely be EXTREMELY difficult to actually get passed in the currently political climate. Far simpler and easier, as has been shown time and again, is to use the tools government has to remove the fat that happens to be on the edges of this steak to reveal the primarily lean and tasty meat that's underneath.
We should not, in any way, willingly go back to a time where our Telecom law functions from a mentality that Technology is still stuck in the 1960's, with horrible and glaring loopholes that both could severely handcuff the government OR open it up for far wider reaching ability then it even has at times under PATRIOT.