Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program is Illegal and Should End New York Times (01/23/14) Savage, Charlie A report issued by a majority of the five-member Privacy Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Thursday has concluded that the National Security Agencys telephone metadata collection program should be brought to an end. Three of the boards members said that Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the FBI to obtain business records that are relevant to an investigation, is not a viable legal foundation for the NSA telephone metadata collection program despite claims by government officials to the contrary. The majority of the boards members also concluded that the NSA program raises constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and has not been helpful in discovering or disrupting terrorist plots. The two dissenting members of the board, however, said that any legal analysis of the program is better left to the nations court system. One of those board members added in a dissenting report that the governments theory about the legality of the metadata collection program was reasonable and made in good faith. Although the board was divided over the question of the legality of the telephone metadata program, it was unanimous in calling for changes, including deleting raw phone records after three years instead of five.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 20:20:06 +0000
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