The House passed legislation Thursday to end the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of American phone records. The compromise measure (called “watered down” by Democrat Jan Schakowsky of Illinois) passed by a vote of 303 to 120, with nine members not voting.

The Central Intelligence Agency will begin recalling furloughed civilian workers needed to carry out the spy agency’s core missions today, according to CIA Director John Brennan. He also remarked that keeping staffing at its current dramatically reduced level “would pose a threat to the safety of human life and the protection of property.”

NSA surveillance could have violated as many as five French privacy laws, according to a suit from the International Federation for Human Rights and the Human Rights League. 

A former NSA software developer says surveillance cameras are vulnerable to hacking, and he will present his findings at the 2013 Black Hat conference.