The leader of the free world, minus Crimea, US President Barack Obama has decided to end the bulk collection and storage of phone records by the National Security Agency. The move has been seen as the NSA spying too much on US individuals and no doubt the move would be seen as a way of confusing many Americans about what their spooks are doing.

The Obama move will allow the government to access the "metadata" when needed.

If Congress approves, the Obama administration would stop storing the information, known as metadata, which lists millions of phone calls made in the United States. However if they need it they can just get permission from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review data about the time and duration of telephone calls that it believes may be connected to terror attacks.

Obama is apparently hacked off that world leaders in The Hague were cracking jokes at him which referred to the US outspying the Chinese. After all, if he wanted dancing girls all he had to do was ask Berlusconi to sort it out, he didn’t need to tap anyone’s phone.

Obama has defended use of the data to protect Americans from attacks. His plan seeks to hold on to "as many capabilities of the program as possible" while ending the government's role in controlling the database, the official said on background.