A US federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the NSA mass phone surveillance program exceeded the scope of what Congress had authorized.
"Without commenting on the ruling today, the President has been clear that he believes we should end the Section 215 bulk telephony metadata program as it currently exists by creating an alternative mechanism to preserve the program’s essential capabilities without the government holding the bulk data," Price said.
Price stressed that the Obama administration is working closely with members of the US Congress from both parties to reform NSA’s bulk phone data collection.
The White House is currently evaluating the ruling by a US federal appeals court on Thursday that the NSA mass phone surveillance program exceeded the scope of what Congress had authorized, Price added.
The 97-page ruling says the laws that NSA applied as a basis for its bulk telephone metadata collection "have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here."
The NSA used Section 215 of the so-called Patriot Act to justify the bulk collection of phone data of US citizens, revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 in a series of leaks.
Two rival bills have been introduced to the Congress, one to amend and one to extend Section 215 ahead of the June 1 expiration deadline.
The Freedom Act would require US intelligence agencies to obtain a subpoena from a secret intelligence court to target a specific phone number, while the other bill would provide a five-year extension of the Patriot Act, including Section 215.
