NSA programme skirts close to being unconstitutional, oversight board says
Oversight board declares agency's programme targeting foreigners overseas is lawful, but recommends that its procedures be revised
An independent US executive-branch board has concluded that a major National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programme targeting foreigners overseas is lawful and effective but that certain elements push "close to the line" of being unconstitutional.
The "unknown and potentially large" collection by the agency of e-mails and phone calls of Americans who communicate with foreign targets was one aspect that raised concerns, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board said in a report released online on Tuesday.
The board’s [proposals] are surprisingly anaemic
But the board did not go as far in its recommendations as privacy advocates would like. For instance, it would leave in place the government's ability to conduct warrantless searches for Americans' communications in the data gathered by the NSA.
At issue is a programme authorised by Section 702 of the Fisa Amendments Act of 2008, which was an effort to bring under the law a surveillance effort started after the 2001 terrorist attacks and run exclusively by the executive branch.
Under the law, the government can target "non-US persons reasonably believed to be located abroad". However, it is not required to obtain individualised warrants, even though the collection is done inside the United States.
The 191-page report comes after a year of heightened debate and scrutiny over US surveillance practices in the wake of leaks of NSA documents to journalists by former agency contractor Edward Snowden.
In January, the board issued a strongly worded report that concluded that a different NSA programme involving the collection of Americans' phone call records was illegal and should end. The agency's gathering of billions of such "metadata" records - numbers dialed, times and durations - did not comply with the law, the board found.