Obama signs surveillance reform bill

Mass collection of phone records exposed by former NSA contractor Snowden comes to end

US President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday legislation that reforms a government surveillance program that swept up millions of US residents' telephone records.

Reversing security policy in place since shortly after the 9/11 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.