Curbing of US spy powers is historic

London: Fugitive former US security contractor Edward Snowden has hailed as "historic" efforts to end the bulk collection of Americans' phone records, while urging campaigners to go further.

The United States Senate passed landmark legislation that limits the powers of the National Security Agency, where Snowden was a contractor before he began leaking details of vast government spying programmes in 2013. Snowden called efforts to end mass surveillance "not enough" but "an important step".

"This is meaningful, it is important and actually historic that this has been refuted, not just by the courts, but by Congress as well and the president himself is saying this mass surveillance has to end," Snowden said. "For the first time in recent history we found that despite the claims of government, the public made the final decision and that is a radical change that we should seize on, we should value and we should push further." "If we collect everything we understand nothing," Snowden told the audience. "We're spending resources for no benefit in terms of public safety and a real cost in terms of freedom and liberty.""Once you've lost a certain degree of power you can no longer oppose that power. There can be no revolutionary political movement when the government knows what everybody is doing, what everybody is saying, what everybody is thinking."