A new report from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) says “the bulk collection of billions of American phone records violates the letter and the spirit of the law,” NPR reports. Excerpts from the report, which is scheduled to be read at an open board meeting today, say the mass collection has “no connection to a specific FBI investigation when it’s being gathered” and the amount of it being “vacuumed up” can’t be considered “relevant.” It also says that under the law, the FBI—not the NSA—should be doing the collecting. Two PCLOB members, however, wrote dissents on that opinion. “The board will vote Thursday on whether to call for an outright end to the phone metadata program and call for more transparency from the government and the secret court,” the report states.
Full Story