President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the PATRIOT Act after the Senate abandoned efforts to reform the controversial law. Privacy groups had urged the Senate to rewrite Section 215 of the bill, which allows the government to secretly access a wide range of private business records without warrants. But Senate Democrats failed to muster enough votes to rewrite the law. Another contested provision that remains in the law allows the government to secretly wiretap persons without any connection to terrorists or spies under the so-called “lone wolf” provision.