14 DAY TRIAL // The National Security Agency’s phone call metadata collection program is illegal and should be shut down, says an independent federal privacy watchdog.
Furthermore, the program has only provided minimal benefits to the country’s counterterrorism efforts, a 238 page report shows, the New York Times writes.
The report comes from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an agency that the US Congress made independent in 2007.
Last Friday, the United States president took the floor and announced a handful of reforms for the NSA, including one regarding the metadata collection program. However, the White House didn’t choose to shut down the program as many have requested.
Instead, the NSA is no longer allowed to hold the metadata, which gives it easy access to it, and will now need a court order each time it wants any file. The data would still be collected, however, but it would be held by a still-unnamed third party.
According to the watchdog, the program lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, which implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments. Moreover, the program “raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value.”
The board recommends that the program be shut down.
This particular program has been one of the most discussed ones so far, especially since it was one of the first revelations based on Snowden’s NSA files. It has raised quite a few eyebrows in the United States and privacy advocates have asked for it to be shut down.
At the same time, this particular program only concerns American citizens, while others are more widespread and also affect the privacy rights of citizens all over the world.
The phone call metadata program has also been criticized by the White House NSA review panel, while a study showed that none of the terrorism-related cases since 9/11 has been aided by input from the program.