White House: working with lawmakers on reforms to NSA phone metadata program

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that it is evaluating a new court ruling that a National Security Agency program that collected data from millions of Americans' phone calls was not authorized by Congress. "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," said Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "We continue to work closely with members of Congress from both parties to do just that and we have been encouraged by good progress on bipartisan, bicameral legislation that would implement these important reforms," Price said in a statement. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Bill Trott)