Independent review board says NSA phone data program is illegal and should end

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has concluded that the National Security Agency’s long-running program to collect billions of Americans’ phone records is illegal and should end.

In a strongly worded report, the PCLOB said that the statute upon which the program was based, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.” The board’s conclusion goes further than President Barack Obama, who said that he thought the NSA’s database of records should be moved out of government hands but did not call for an outright halt to the program. The board had shared its conclusions with President Obama in the days leading up to his speech. The divided panel also concluded that the program raises serious threats to civil liberties, has shown limited value in countering terrorism and is not sustainable from a policy perspective.

The 238-page report is arguably the most extensive analysis to date of the program’s statutory and constitutional underpinnings, as well as of its practical value. It rejects the reasoning of at least 15 federal surveillance court judges and the Justice Department in saying that the program cannot be grounded in Section 215. That statute requires that records sought by the government -- in this case phone numbers dialed, call times and durations, but not call content -- be relevant to an authorized investigation. But the board found that it is impossible that all the records collected -- billions daily -- could be relevant to a single investigation “without redefining that word in a manner that is circular, unlimited in scope.”