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 The program, which some Republican presidential hopefuls have
criticized because they say it puts Americans at greater risk of
attack by Islamic State and other violent groups, has satisfactorily
complied with eight privacy safeguards that include transparency,
oversight, data minimization and use limitation since its
implementation in November, according to a report released by the
NSA’s Civil Liberties and Privacy Office.
The NSA ended its daily vacuuming of millions of Americans’ phone
metadata, meaning the numbers and time stamps of calls but not their
content, late last year after Congress passed a law reforming some
of the government’s surveillance practices.
A presidential review committee found that the bulk data collection,
exposed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, was an
ineffective tool in fighting terrorism. The data collection was also
criticized by privacy advocates and tech companies wary of broad
government surveillance.
Under a replacement program that took effect on Nov. 29, NSA and law
enforcement agencies must get a court order and ask communications
companies like Verizon Communications to authorize monitoring of
call records of specific people or groups for up to six months.
While some Republicans vying for the White House have criticized the
shutdown of the bulk program, other Republican contenders have
defended it.
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Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has defended his vote in favor of NSA
reforms by saying that the new program actually is capable of
collecting a greater percentage of calls than the old one, due to
technical upgrades.
Some privacy advocates expressed skepticism at Friday’s report,
given the level of secrecy shrouding the U.S. intelligence
community.
“The USA FREEDOM Act ended bulk collection, but this report leaves
us guessing just how good a job it did,” said Robyn Greene, policy
counsel with Open Technology Institute at the New America, a
Washington think tank.
The other four privacy principles that have been complied with are
individual participation, purpose specification, data quality and
data security.
(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Leslie
Adler)
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