NSA spying law set to expire

The current law, due to expire on June 1, allows the NSA to collect bulk data on numbers called and the time and length of calls, but not their content.

Efforts by Congress to extend the law so far have proved fruitless, and Congressional aides said that little work on the issue was being done on Capitol Hill.

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There are deeply divergent views among the Republicans who control Congress. Some object to bulk data collection as violating individual freedoms, while others consider it a vital tool for preventing terrorist attacks against America.

Ned Price, a national security council spokesman, told Reuters the administration had decided to stop bulk collection of domestic telephone call metadata unless Congress explicitly re-authorizes it.

Some legal experts have suggested that even if Congress does not extend the law the administration might be able to convince the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to authorize collection under other legal authorities.

But Price made clear the administration now has no intention of doing so, and that the future of metadata collection after June 1 was up to Congress.

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Price said the administration was encouraging Congress to enact legislation in the coming weeks that would allow the collection to continue.

But Price said: "If Section 215 (of the law which covers the collection) sunsets, we will not continue the bulk telephony metadata program."

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NSA spying law set to expire