9.54am GMT

Welcome to our hub for all Edward Snowden, NSA and GCHQ-related developments around the world, as controversy over revelations leaked by the whistleblower continue to make headlines. As arguments rage over how much of our day to day life should be monitored in the name of security, we'll be tracking the growing global debate about privacy in the digital age. We'd like to know what you think about the whole NSA story, what you're worried about – and any new areas you'd like to read more about.

Good morning. The focus turns to Washington today, where the two most senior intelligence officials in the US are to testify before the House of Representatives intelligence committee.

Both James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, are expected to be questioned on why they appears not to have informed either the White House or congressional oversight committees about the spying activities directed at foreign leaders revealed over the past weeks.

Clapper is also under fire for misleading Congress on bulk domestic collection. Alexander caused controversy last week when he mused that “we ought to come up with a way of stopping” reporters’ stories about the NSA.

Also today James Sensenbrenner, the Republican author of the 2001 Patriot Act, the act which authorised the bulk collection of phone records, will introduce a bill called the United and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet Collection, and Online Monitoring Act or USA Freedom Act, which would ban warrantless bulk phone metadata collection and prevent the NSA from querying its foreign communications databases to identify information on Americans. Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, will simultaneously introduce a counterpart to the bill in the upper house.

The moves come as:

• The chair of the Senate intelligence committee, who has been a loyal defender of the National Security Agency, dramatically broke ranks, saying she was "totally opposed" to the US spying on allies and demanding a total review of all surveillance programmes.

California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein strongly criticised the NSA's monitoring of the calls of friendly world leaders such as German chancellor Angela Merkel. Feinstein, who has steadfastly defended the NSA's mass surveillance programs, added that both Barack Obama and members of her committee, which is supposed to received classified briefings, had been kept in the dark about operations to target foreign leaders. "It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community," Feinstein said in a statement to reporters. "Unlike NSA's collection of phone records under a court order, it is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily informed. "With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of US allies – including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany – let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed," she said.

• Obama told ABC News that he would not discuss classified information but accepted that security operations were being reassessed to ensure proper oversight of the NSA's technical abilities. He said:

The national security operations, generally, have one purpose and that is to make sure the American people are safe and that I'm making good decisions. I'm the final user of all the intelligence that they gather. But they're involved in a whole wide range of issues. We give them policy direction. But what we've seen over the last several years is their capacities continue to develop and expand, and that's why I'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing.

• The White House's chief spokesman, Jay Carney, said the administration "acknowledged the tensions" caused by Snowden's disclosures, saying:

The president clearly feels strongly about making sure we are not just collecting information because we can, but because we should. We recognise there needs to be additional constraints on how we gather and use intelligence.

• A new disclosure from the Electronic Frontier Foundation added to the NSA’s woes by suggesting that it began testing means to gather location data on cellphones inside the US before informing the secret surveillance court that oversees it.

• The Spanish government warned of a potential breakdown of trust with the US following reports that the National Security Agency monitored more than 60m phone calls in Spain in the space of one month.

• In Britain, David Cameron called on the Guardian and other newspapers to show "social responsibility" in the reporting of the leaked NSA files to avoid high court injunctions or the use of D notices to prevent the publication of information that could damage national security.

You can catch up with yesterday’s blog here.

We’ll have all this and more throughout the day.