President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday that will grant over half a billion dollars of funding to the U.S. intelligence community and provide more protection for intelligence agency whistleblowers.

The bipartisan bill authorizes $564 million over five years -- none of it for classified programs, The Associated Press reported.

The law, which "adopts and expands whistleblower protection proposals" the president made in 2012, protects employees who share information about potential misconduct within their agencies "to internal watchdogs or to Congress' intelligence committees," the AP reported.

As a result, whistleblowers are encouraged to go through proper channels to voice concern rather than leaking potentially damaging information, said supporters of the law. The new law does not protect intelligence agency contractors like notorious National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden.

In June 2013, the former CIA agent caused a public outcry when he leaked documents revealing that the NSA has been secretly collecting data on citizens through phone companies like Verizon and AT&T and tapping into the servers of major web companies like Google and Facebook.

In response, many Americans said the government's controversial surveillance program is an invasion of privacy.

According to the New York Times, classified documents leaked by Snowden also revealed that the NSA has been building a comprehensive facial recognition database using the Internet to stockpile millions of photographs posted online every day.

"The agency intercepts 'millions of images per day' -- including about 55,000 'facial recognition quality images' -- which translate into 'tremendous untapped potential,'" according to 2011 documents obtained from Snowden, the Times reported.

The documents show that the NSA routinely runs searches through social media, email, video conferences and other digital communication agents to gather photos for the agency's massive database collection.