When it comes to national security versus privacy rights, a lot has happened since Edward Snowden fled Hawaii for Hong Kong just two years ago last month.

With legislation approved this week ending the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of data, Snowden is taking “a victory lap,” as The Hill puts it.

“Ending the mass surveillance of private phone calls under the Patriot Act is a historic victory for the rights of every citizen,” Snowden wrote in a New York Times opinion piece, “the latest product of a change in global awareness.”

Here’s more:

“In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated. This is the power of an informed public.”

Some aspects of the Patriot Act are not dead. As The Hill explains, the USA Freedom Act renewed three parts of the Patriot Act, “including the controversial Section 215 previously cited by the NSA in an effort to justify its warrantless collection of Americans’ data.”

Edward Snowden.

But Snowden’s name was dropped a lot this week by lawmakers, including favorably by GOP Sen. Rand Paul and unfavorably by Sen. Mitch McConnell, both Republicans of Kentucky.

Civil Beat, BTW, first reported on the Snowden revelations on June 9, 2013: NSA Whistleblower is Hawaii Resident. Excerpt:

This story reports that Snowden lived here in Hawaii where he was working for NSA through private contractors including Booz Allen and Dell when he began sending documents to the Guardian and others. Three weeks ago, he said goodbye to his boss and his girlfriend, with whom he shares a home in Hawaii, and caught a plane for Hong King where, the Guardian reports, he has been since. Reporters interviewed him there.

And here’s what we reported the next day:

The Spies Next Door: The National Security Agency Works in our Shadows

Paradise Lost: The Cost of Freedom for NSA Leaker Edward Snowden

The NSA Black Hole: 5 Basic Things We Still Don’t Know About the Agency’s Snooping

17,000 Sign Petition Urging Obama To Pardon Snowden

NSA Whistleblower Snowden’s Waipahu Home Stands Vacant