On 18 December 2013, President Obama met with the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. The panel, composed of Richard Clarke, Michael Morell, Geoffrey Stone, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire, was convened following a series of disclosures of classified information involving foreign intelligence collection by the National Security Agency by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The report starts off with the premise that “because our adversaries operate through the use of complex communications technologies, the National Security Agency, with its impressive capabilities and talented officers, is indispensable to keeping our country and our allies safe and secure. At the same time, the United States is deeply committed to the protection of privacy and civil liberties—fundamental values that can be and at times have been eroded by excessive intelligence collection.”
The report then proceeds to list 46 recommendations to US intelligence collection activities that “will protect these values without undermining what we need to do to keep our nation safe.”
President Obama is expected to announce in January which recommendations he intends to implement.
The report and convening of the panel does raise a number of questions, not limited to:
- which recommendations will be implemented and what impact they will have, if any;
- whether this will be enough to mollify critics of these programs;
- what is the likelihood that the Review Group would have been convened had leaks about the NSA’s activities not been made by Snowden. Presumably, had the NSA activities/program in question not come to light, there would never have been any felt need for public review, since no one in the public would have known to voice any displeasure about these programs’ possible impact on privacy and civil liberties;
- whether further revelations about yet unknown NSA programs will result in additional Review Groups, recommendations, promises of reforms, and/or policy changes.
To read the report and see the 46 recommendations made by the Review Group:
Liberty and Security in a Changing World: Report and Recommendations of The President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies
