An open letter from the tech industry and privacy groups urges the government to not renew the provision in the Patriot Act that allows for the bulk collection of metadata. That provision, called Section 215, expires in June. In 2013 former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released documents that showed the NSA was gathering this information from millions of phone calls. The administration says it will stop the bulk data collection if Congress fails to reauthorize it. Attempts by Congress to reform the country’s surveillance programs have so far failed.”]

