U.S. privacy board says NSA phone program illegal; should end [View all]

[DirkGently]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/23/us-usa-security-privacy-idUSBREA0M0TI20140123

(Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records provides only minimal benefits to countering terrorism, is illegal and should end, a federal privacy watchdog said in a report to be released on Thursday and reviewed by Reuters.

(snip)

"The Section 215 bulk telephone records program lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value," the board said in its report.

The board's conclusion that NSA's bulk collection of Americans telephone metadata lacks legal grounding goes further than both the president and an ad hoc panel he created to review NSA eavesdropping activities.

In its report released last month, the review panel, which included former White House and intelligence officials, also raised questions about the value of telephone metadata collection in producing counter terrorism breakthroughs. The panel recommended that metadata collection should continue, but that data should henceforth be stored either by telephone companies or an independent third party.