posted 01-19-2014 05:33 PM                  

but now, after hearing the sides line up and make their arguments, i believe that given the opportunity to abuse the collection and use of private data...the government WILL abuse it..

obama seems to suggesting that it will all be ok if we just have someone else hold the meta-data...the phone companies want nothing to do with that because they will be linked to the process, and if abused...will bring them into lawsuits.

so on one hand, the right will say that the process is ok, and if god forbid we have another attack..it will be because we stopped/slowed the NSA from doing their job.

on the other hand, just because no one can point to a particular instance of where this collection of data has been abused....doesnt mean it hasnt happened or more importantly...will happen

both arguments have merit. given the opportunity to abuse the information...can anyone doubt that the government wont? going back to the 50's FBI files on people...now the nsa can know the most private conversations, emails, websites etc...surely some politicians will salivate over the idea of having that information on their enemies...foreign or domestic

by the same token, do we want to hamstring the NSA from using the technology that exists? probably not

but for me....it seems that it will come down to whether or not this information is private? my guess is that the supreme court will rule that it is not...just like when you put something into the mail...an email is put out there!

but i hope that they at least require a subpoena in order for the government to actually listen to this information...at least that means they have to make a case before a judge that they actually have reason to believe that you did something wrong before knowing what websites you visited.....

jmo

am i wrong?

posted 01-23-2014 10:12 AM                  

Board declares NSA data sweep illegal, says program should be ended

Published January 23, 2014 •
FoxNews.com

An independent board tasked with reviewing National Security Agency surveillance called Thursday for the government to end its mass data collection program and "purge" its files, declaring the program illegal in a major challenge to President Obama.

The president did not go nearly as far when he called last week for ending government control of phone data collected from hundreds of millions of Americans. In its report, obtained by Fox News and scheduled for release Thursday afternoon, The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) said the program ran afoul of the law on several fronts.

"The ... bulk telephone records program lacks a viable legal foundation," the board's report said, adding that it raises "serious threats to privacy and civil liberties" and has "only limited value."

"As a result, the Board recommends that the government end the program," the panel wrote.

It remains to be seen whether Obama will accept all or part of the recommendations, but the findings could nevertheless be used as leverage in federal lawsuits against NSA spying.

The report concluded that the NSA collection raises "constitutional concerns" with regard to U.S. citizens' rights of speech, association and privacy.

"The connections revealed by the extensive database of telephone records gathered under the program will necessarily include relationships established among individuals and groups for political, religious, and other expressive purposes," it said. "Compelled disclosure to the government of information revealing these associations can have a chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights."

The panel added that the program "implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments."

The recommendations are sure to meet resistance in Washington. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who has been a staunch defender of the NSA, voiced dismay at the report's findings.

"I am disappointed that three members of the Board decided to step well beyond their policy and oversight role and conducted a legal review of a program that has been thoroughly reviewed," he said in a statement, noting that federal judges have found the program to be legal dozens of times.

The report also rejected claims that the program was necessary to cover up a gap in intelligence arising from a failure to detect Al Qaeda members in the United States prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. U.S. officials had claimed that the phone data collection program would have made clear that terrorist Khalid al-Mihdhar was calling a safehouse in Yemen from a San Diego address.

"The failure to identify Mihdhar's presence in the United States stemmed primarily from a lack of information sharing among federal agencies, not of a lack of surveillance capabilities," the report said. "This was a failure to connect the dots, not a failure to connect enough dots."

The board's recommendations go well beyond the reforms ordered by Obama in a major speech last Friday, in which he said that the phone records database would no longer be held by the NSA. Obama also tightened restrictions on gathering and accessing phone data, but did not recommend the program's end.

The PCLOB recommendations also are more sweeping than reforms proposed by another panel of experts. That panel, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, advised Obama in December to restrict phone surveillance to limited court-ordered sweeps.

Along with its call for ending bulk phone surveillance, the oversight board report outlined 11 other recommendations on surveillance policy, calling for more government transparency and other reforms aimed at bolstering civil liberties and privacy protections. The board called for special attorneys to provide independent views in some proceedings before the secret spy court -- as opposed to Obama's plan for a panel of experts that would participate at times. The board also urged the administration to provide the public with clear explanations of the legal authority behind any surveillance affecting Americans.

Legal opinions and documents "describing the government's legal analysis should be made public so there can be a free and open debate regarding the law's scope," the board said. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have been criticized by civil liberties advocates and by tech industry officials for failing to provide clear public explanations of the decision-making behind their surveillance policies.

While the oversight board found consensus in some of its recommendations for transparency, its members were sharply divided when it came to the surveillance programs and their judicial oversight.

Two members, former Bush administration Justice Department lawyers Rachel Brand and Elisebeth Collins Cook, defended the bulk phone sweeps and said they were too valuable to shut down.

"I am concerned about the detrimental effect this superfluous second-guessing can have on our national security agencies and their staff," said Brand, who as a Justice lawyer defended USA Patriot Act legislation that provided the NSA with its authority to make the bulk phone collections.

But the oversight board's three other members -- executive director David Medine, former federal judge Patricia Wald and civil liberties advocate James Dempsey -- held firm for broad changes.

"When the government collects all of a person's telephone records, storing them for five years in a government database that is subjected to high-speed digital searching and analysis, the privacy implications go far beyond what can be revealed by the metadata of a single telephone call," the majority wrote.

The oversight board was created at the urging of the independent commission on the 9/11 attacks as a key organizational reform needed to balance counterterrorism policy with civil liberties concerns. The board functioned fitfully for several years, often short on members because of Congress' inaction. It finally won legislative approval last year for all five members and staff and took on its study of the NSA programs at the urging of Obama and congressional leaders.