In the United States, the first legislation aimed at ending the National Security Agency's bulk collection of US phone records has been passed by the House of Representatives. The USA Freedom Act would mean that kind of data remains largely in the hands of phone companies. Despite some fears the White House backed bill had been diluted, it passed through the House by 303 votes to 120, and now goes to the Senate. There was anger when former NSA analyst Edward Snowden revealed the practice. This bill would bring to an end the sweeping practice of collecting the to and from records of nearly every American landline telephone call, in an attempt to search the data for connections to terror plots abroad.