US says call data sifting to end unless Congress acts

The White House on Monday said a controversial program exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden that covertly collects masses of telephone data will end if Congress does not expressly reauthorize it. The program -- which secretly tracks when telephone calls are made, to whom and for how long -- was introduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It had been secret until Snowden, a National Security Agency contractor, revealed the government was asking compa