03/19/2014

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) hearing on US government's surveillance programs operating under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), also known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that gives the government the authority to conduct surveillance overseas.

Section 702 was meant to apply only to non-U.S. persons abroad. The scope of the program was revealed through the leaks of former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden.

This is PCLOB's third workshop (#1 / #2) since last June's initial revelations about NSA surveillance. In December, the PCLOB released a meticulous and devastating report about the government's bulk collection of Americans' phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, concluding that the program violates the plain terms of Section 215.

The PCLOB is now turning its attention to the FAA, the legal foundation for the government's PRISM program and its "Upstream" collection of communications from U.S. telecommunications providers.

Introductory/Closing Remarks (David Medine, PCLOB Chairman)

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(WATCH) Panel I: Government Perspective on Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

  • James A. Baker (General Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigation)
  • Rajesh De (General Counsel, National Security Agency)
  • Robert Litt (General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence)
  • Brad Wiegmann (Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division, Department of Justice)

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(WATCH) Panel II: Legal Issues with 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

  • Laura Donohue (Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law School) (Written Testimony)
  • Jameel Jaffer (Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union) (Written Testimony)
  • Julian Ku (Professor of Law, Hofstra University)
  • Rachel Levinson-Waldman (Counsel, Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice) (Written Testimony)

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(WATCH) Panel III: Transnational and Policy Issues

  • John Bellinger (Partner, Arnold & Porter) (Written Testimony)
  • Dean C. Garfield (President and CEO, Information Technology Industry Council) (Written Testimony)
  • Laura Pitter (Senior National Security Researcher, Human Rights Watch) (Written Testimony)
  • Eric Posner (Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School) (Written Testimony)
  • Ulrich Sieber (Director, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg/Germany)
  • Christopher Wolf (Partner, Hogan Lovells) (Written Testimony)