Tag: U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB)

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have been a disaster for privacy and free expression, with consequences for people all across the globe. Here’s how we’re fighting back.

The U.S. government believes that those who are not in the U.S. or who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents — “non-U.S. persons” in official parlance — have few to no privacy rights to protect them from U.S. surveillance. Access provides four policy recommendations that would start the U.S. on a course towards respecting the human rights of all people.

The global population has become collateral damage in the race to collect surveillance data

PCLOB Section 702 surveillance report fails to consider the rights of those most affected by Section 702 mass surveillance programs, or address the pressing need for legislative reform.

Access sees the PCLOB’s recommendations as a major step toward ending the practice of indiscriminate bulk collection of user data. While the report is limited in its scope, it makes bold statements casting doubt on both the legality and the utility of the NSA’s mass surveillance programs.

Last week, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) released a statement detailing plans to release not just one, but two reports on NSA surveillance programs. The Board will release one report on metadata collection under PATRIOT Act Section 215 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), expected in late January or early February, and a second report on the targeting of non-US persons under FISA Section 702, with an indeterminate release date. These reports come on the heels of a parallel report by the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, released in December 2013.

This week, Access joined with 65 organizations and individuals from 25 countries to urge the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) to consider the global human rights implications of the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance programs.

Expressing concern about public confidence in the U.S. National Security Agency, President Obama announced today four proposals to reform U.S. surveillance practice. However, even if enacted, these proposals would still fail to actually protect the basic civil liberties of U.S. and non-U.S. persons.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is the government oversight body principally charged with protecting privacy and civil liberties in the United States. However, in the eight years since it was established, the PCLOB has met only infrequently. But with the recent revelations of unconstitutional massive data collection by the NSA, it seems the PCLOB’s long run of applied irrelevance may have finally come to an end – and not a moment too soon.