The US House of Representatives has overwhelming voted to back the USA Freedom Act which would end the bulk surveillance of American phone records and emails. The backing of the bill which seeks to amend notorious sections of the USA Patriot Act, will embolden privacy advocates and comes on the back of US Court of Appeals ruling last week that the NSA’s bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful.

Seen as a compromise between real reform and keeping national security hawks happy, the Freedom Act has emerged as having the most realistic change of curbing the NSA.

Convincing the Senate to back the legislation is another thing…