The US president Barack Obama has reportedly promised that the government's highly-controversial 'snoop-op' will have 'appropriate reforms' in order to have more transparency but did not indicate if there will be any end to the surveillance programme.
According to the BBC, Obama urged appointing a lawyer to challenge the government at the nation's secretive surveillance court (FISA) and also proposed 'safeguards against abuse' which include tweaks to the legislation on the collection of 'metadata'.
Obama said that he would work with the Congress to reform Section 215 of the Bush-era Patriot Act, which governs the programme that collects telephone records.
On whistleblower Edward Snowden whose revelations led to US' fall out with other nations including crucial allies, Obama said that he did not believe if Snowden was a patriot and asked the US 'fugitive' to defend his actions.