Late Tuesday, after a brief debate marked by shameless fearmongering that reeked of some of even George W Bush’s worst moments, the US Congress failed at its most promising chance to pass at least some surveillance reform sparked by Edward Snowden’s revelations. The Senate Republicans, for the month they’re still in the minority, managed to block a vote on the USA Freedom Act, the modest National Security Agency oversight bill that’s been in the works for over a year.

But the Republicans – and NSA supporters everywhere – may have made a mistake that will come back to haunt them. They killed a measure that many reformers were holding their nose while supporting, and six month from now – by the middle of 2015 – they may have several even bigger fights on their hands.

Yes, the USA Freedom Act would’ve taken the massive phone records database away from the NSA. But it’s not like the government would’ve lost much: the NSA still would’ve been able to go to phone companies to search the exact same information, despite incoming Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s ridiculous warning ahead of Tuesday’s vote that even the most modest reform would basically lead to the Islamic State killing us all.

Yes, the USA Freedom Act would’ve brought a little more transparency to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court, where America’s surveillance laws and its Fourth Amendment have been re-interpreted in almost total secrecy. But the nearly 40-year-old clandestine court is already giving in to post-Snowden public pressure and has started ordering the release of opinions on its own.

And, yes, the USA Freedom Act would’ve put a privacy advocate beyond the door of the Fisa court in at least some situations so that for the first time the government wouldn’t be arguing in secret against nobody. (This was certainly the most important provision the public lost out on Tuesday.) But the legislation Republicans just blocked also would have effectively shut down several promising lawsuits against the NSA in federal court and another case where National Security Letters were already ruled unconstitutional.

Now many of those cases, already in the appeals stage, may be decided within the next six months, and if the oral arguments are any indication, the US government may be in trouble. Indeed, the conservative justices may be willing to do more for your privacy than conservative lawmakers, as Judge Richard Leon proved last year when he ruled that the NSA’s phone surveillance program is likely unconstitutional.

But here’s the real reason the the USA Freedom Act’s failure could backfire on its biggest supporters: As I’ve mentioned before, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act – the law that was re-interpreted in secret to allow for mass phone metadata surveillance in the first place – comes up for renewal next summer. It has to be reauthorized before June, or it will disappear completely.

And even though the Republicans will be in control next year, they won’t be able to pull the same stunts they did on Tuesday. Everyone knows getting “no” votes is a lot easier than getting a “yes”. And this time they’ll need 60 “yes” votes, plus the support of the House of Representatives, where we know already there are likely enough votes to kill an extension of the Patriot Act.

You don’t need be some blind optimist to believe Congress will miraculously start working next year. (It won’t.) You just need to listen closely to the NSA’s biggest defender, outgoing Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, who sounded downright terrified on Tuesday night that the bulk-collection program she has spent the last year and a half defending tooth and nail would soon die.

“If we do not pass the bill, we will lose this program,” Feinstein said. While she spent half her speech agreeing with Republicans about Isis and 9/11 and the rest of their fearmongering parade, Feinstein made clear that the writing is on the wall for the controversial mass surveillance program the Snowden revealed in that very first NSA story in the Guardian.

The failure of the USA Freedom Act, no matter how incomplete the bill was, certainly isn’t something to celebrate. But now we will see multiple courts potentially ruling NSA surveillance unconstitutional. Now we will have a chance to force the government into potentially gutting key provisions of the Bush-era Patriot Act, all while ubiquitous encryption becomes ever more prevalent in the communications devices we use – so maybe soon we don’t have to rely on Congress and the courts to be the masters of our own privacy.