President Announces Intelligence Review Group, EPIC Presses for FISA Reform
President Obama met this week with the members of a newly formed group of experts to review intelligence and communications technologies. The group consists of computer security advisor Richard Clark, former CIA Director Michael Morell, and legal scholars Geoffrey Stone, Cass Sunstein, and Peter Swire. The White House said the group would advise the President on how "the United States can employ its technical collection capabilities in a way that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while respecting our commitment to privacy and civil liberties, recognizing our need to maintain the public trust, and reducing the risk of unauthorized disclosure." This week, EPIC contacted each of the review group members to provide important materials regarding the protection of privacy and civil liberties. EPIC sent to the Review Group members copies of EPIC's Supreme Court petition, arguing that the current domestic surveillance program is unlawful, as well as EPIC's Congressional testimony on the FISA Amendments Act and EPIC's 2010 letter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court concerning reform of FISA procedures. For more information, see EPIC: FISA Reform.