in re epic Phone Record Privacy privacy
Oversight Board Calls for End of NSA Telephone Records Program
Today the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board called for the end of the section 215 program that allows the NSA to collect the telephone records of all Americans. In a comprehensive report, the Oversight Board unanimously found that "the NSA's Section 215 program has not proven useful in identifying unknown terrorists or terrorist plots" and that "telephone calling records, when collected in bulk and subjected to powerful analytic tools, can reveal highly sensitive personal information." A majority of the board also concluded that Section 215 did not permit the routine collection of all telephone records on all Americans. The report set out 12 recommendations discussing additional privacy safeguards, greater transparency, and improvements to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The members of the Oversight Board unanimously supported almost all of the recommendations. EPIC urged the Board last year at a public workshop to (1) find that section 215 does not permit the collection of all telephone records by the NSA; (2) improve reporting of FISA activities; (3) establish new safeguards for transparency and accountability; and (4) reconsider the Constitutional basis of metadata collection in light of the scope of the government's activities and recent Supreme Court opinions. EPIC had earlier petitioned the Supreme Court to find the 215 program unlawful. Former members of the Church Committee and dozens of legal scholars supported the EPIC petition. For more information, see EPIC: In re EPIC - NSA Telephone Record Surveillance.
January 23, 2014| Share:
