A strong majority of the US House of Representatives on Thursday night voted to cut funding for surveillance on citizens. The amendment would forbid the NSA to use any of its funding from the Defense Appropriations Bill to conduct warrantless searches. It would also disallow the agency to use its budget to get companies and organisations to add backdoors to their encryption standards. The proposal still has to clear a Senate vote before it becomes law in 2015. It was originally a central component in the original version of the USA Freedom Act legislation the House passed last month to curb NSA spying and end bulk data collection.”]