The uproar over domestic surveillance and national security issues may die down to a whimper in the Senate this year, report Meredith Shiner and Niels Lesniewski in Roll Call.

While the annual debate over the defense authorization bill usually provides senators with a megaphone on those and other controversial issues, this year’s bizarre end to November — with Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., exercising the “nuclear option” to end filibusters on most nominations — served to bury the contentious debate over the National Security Agency’s mass data and intelligence collection on Americans.

Indeed, President Barack Obama is likely to dodge what could have been an uncomfortable fight with many members of his own party over the NSA and other security issues.