US House votes to stop NSA’s mass surveillance

The US House of Representatives has voted to end the NSA's widespread surveillance of American citizens.

Members voted 338 to 88 to support the USA Freedom Act, a measure that amends and extends parts of 2001's much-discussed USA Patriot Act.

One of its clauses is the banning of the NSA from bulk-collecting US citizens' phone records, emails and web addresses.

According to Representative Goodlatte, the Judiciary Committee chair, one of the bill's driving forces, the NSA's blanket surveillance "has not ceased, and will not cease, unless and until Congress acts to shut it down".

This mass-scale data collection was the source of much controversy when it was revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

The ex-NSA contractor leaked huge amounts of info related to programmes like PRISM and MYSTIC, and fled to Russia to avoid government sanctions.

The methods and scale of these spying operations led to a federal appeals court deeming them illegal last week, and both rulings have been met with support from privacy advocate groups.

Although the bill has now been passed by the House, it must still be ratified by the Senate in order to make it onto the statute books, having already received presidential approval.

However, current Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has previously introduced bills designed to extends the NSA's powers rather than curtail them.

There are those in the Senate in favour of the bill, though, and both Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden have previously threatened to filibuster extensions of Patriot Act powers.