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There's some good news coming from the White House today that deserves repeating. Reuters is reporting that Ned Price, a spokesman from the President's National Security Council, has unequivocally stated:

If Section 215 sunsets, we will not continue the bulk telephony metadata program.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act is the authority that the NSA, with the FBI's help, has interpreted to allow the U.S. government to vacuum up the call records of millions of innocent people. It expires on June 1.

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With the clock ticking, Congress is running out of time to pass legislation that will reform bulk surveillance.

In fact, despite the Administration's push for reform legislation, it looks increasingly likely that the next vote Congress will face on NSA spying is the June 1 sunset. That's why contacting Congress about the vote is so important--lawmakers should understand that their vote is a statement about where they stand on the Constitution.

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If you agree that it's time to end mass surveillance, contact Congress and tell them what you expect to see: a no vote on reauthorization of Section 215 on June 1, along with some real comprehensive reform to NSA spying.

Although, there could be a loophole.

Some journalists and privacy advocates have speculated that, even if Section 215 were to expire in the absence of other legislation, bulk collection could continue under Section 102(b) of Public Law 109-177, which some have said would allow investigations that began before the expiration of Section 215 to continue. In November, Charlie Savage at the New York Times reported that the provision could mean that:

as long as there was an older counterterrorism investigation still open, the court could keep issuing Section 215 orders to phone companies indefinitely for that investigation.

Since they can claim everything is a matter of national security and don't ever need to reveal anything, they could pretty much claim everything is part of an older investigation. But even taking a tiny bit of authority for bulk collection of data from the NSA is a good thing.