CHANGING TIMES: Passage of the USA Freedom Act, the result of an alliance between Senate Democrats and some of the chamber's most conservative Republicans, was a victory for Obama, a Democrat.
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama signed into law on June 2 legislation passed by Congress earlier in the day reforming a government surveillance programme that swept up millions of Americans' telephone records.
Reversing security policy in place since shortly after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, the bill ends a system exposed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The spy agency collected and searched records of phone calls looking for terrorism leads but was not allowed to listen to their content.
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