14 DAY TRIAL // The NSA review panel has finally released the report it was ordered to put together a few months back. The five members advise the White House to curb some of the agency’s surveillance operations and recommend setting limits to the program that collects billions of phone call records.
One key point on the entire list is the panel’s proposal to halt the bulk collection of phone call metadata. This comes only a day after a federal judge said that such practices were almost surely against the American Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
The panel advises that such records should only be held by telcos or a private third party and if the government wants access to any of that content, it would need an order from the FISA court for each search it makes.
“Every limitation on the government’s ability to monitor our conduct makes it more difficult for the government to prevent bad things from happening. As our risk-management principle suggests, the question is not whether granting the government authority makes us incrementally safer, but whether the additional safety is worth the sacrifice in terms of individual privacy, personal liberty, and public trust,” the document reads.
The report includes nearly 50 recommendations, most of which refer to legislation bits that have enabled the agency to expand its mass surveillance practices.
The document sums up to one statement coming from the panel. “We recommend concrete steps to promote transparency and accountability, and thus to promote public trust, which is essential in this domain,” the report reads.
Of course, whether the White House will ultimately abide by what the report recommends and what the tech industry giants demanded during a meeting organized on Tuesday, it remains to be seen. So far, the public voice has been largely dismissed and rallies against the NSA have left the White House unmoved, even if some Congress members may have been swayed.