The US National Security Agency has ended its daily vacuuming of millions of Americans’ phone records and replaced the practise with more tightly targeted surveillance methods.
31-year-old American Edward Snowden, a contract employee at the National Security Agency, is the whistleblower behind significant revelations that surfaced in June 2013 about the US government's top secret, extensive domestic surveillance programmes. Snowden flew to Hong Kong from Hawaii in May 2013, and supplied confidential US government documents to media outlets including the Guardian.
