[bestbits] Re: Call for comment: civil society letter to PCLOB re: human rights impacts of NSA surveillance of 'non-US persons'

Tue Jul 23 21:08:18 EDT 2013

Dear all,

As you may be aware, the US Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board 
is accepting comments  commentary regarding the US government's 
surveillance programs under the PATRIOT Act and FISA.  (I've included 
some information about PCLOB below in case you're not familiar with this 
entity.)  I'd like to share with you a draft was put together by CDT, 
with feedback from a number of folks on this list, that focuses on the 
impact these programs have on the human rights of individuals outside 
the US: 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17BWIev_DybbML3ObDCORkW83THrNGuJrHlV5sQLdYA0/edit?usp=sharing 

We feel that the draft text is at a point where it's ready to be 
shared with the broader Best Bits community for comment.  Please share 
any comments you have on the letter text with the whole list. (I will be 
traveling on Wednesday and so slow to respond to email.)  Ideally, we'd 
like to have a final draft of the letter text available to circulate 
during the day on Thursday, giving us about a week to solicit sign-on 
from as broad an array of groups as possible.  This is a very compressed 
timeframe, unfortunately, but the deadline for submitting comments is 
August 1st, so there is not much flexibility in the schedule.

The Best Bits interim steering committee has agreed to host the final 
letter text on the Best Bits website to facilitate sign-on once we've 
reached that point.

It's worth noting here that while a joint letter with broad 
international sign in is one way of getting the US government to 
consider the rights of non-US persons, so is flooding PCLOB with 
individual letters from international groups, so please feel free to 
adapt or build on to this letter and submit it separately. We 
intentionally did not make recommendations to PCLOB so as to garner 
broad sign on (more on that below), but individual letters are a good 
opportunity to make specific recommendations.

*Background on the letter:*
PCLOB will be preparing a report and is accepting comments 
<http://www.regulations.gov/#%21documentDetail;D=PCLOB-2013-0005-0001> 
(with no limitations on who can submit comments) until August 1st. As 
many of you know, it's been an uphill battle to get any attention on 
this critical issue of extraterritorial impacts of the US surveillance 
programs. PCLOB hosted an open hearing on the NSA program earlier in 
July, and there was unfortunately only a single reference to the human 
rights of people other than US citizens during the entire hearing.  We 
think this comment process is one of the better opportunities that 
groups from outside the US will have in making their opinions about the 
US surveillance activities heard.  I'd highly encourage organizations 
and individuals to make their own comments into this process, in 
addition to considering signing this letter.

As a final note, the letter intentionally does not lay out 
recommendations more specific than "take into consideration the human 
rights of individuals outside the US", for several reasons. First, it 
will likely be more difficult for a broad range of groups to sign onto 
something urging very specific legal or policy remedies.  Further, I 
wouldn't want to see a short, easily agreed set of recommendations (e.g. 
focusing on transparency) get interpreted to mean that those fixes are 
the only thing the US government needs to do to remedy the situation.  
Transparency is an important initial step, but it's far from the only 
action needed here (a point CDT will be emphasizing in our individual 
comments to PCLOB).  Again, I'd strongly recommend groups file 
individual comments as well, particularly if you have specific 
recommendations and actions for the Board.

Looking forward to your comments,
Emma

*PCLOB - WHAT IS IT?* - 
https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/privacy-and-civil-liberties-oversight-board

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is an advisory body to 
assist the President and other senior Executive branch officials in 
ensuring that concerns with respect to privacy and civil liberties are 
appropriately considered in the implementation of all laws, regulations, 
and executive branch policies related to war against terrorism.

Recommended by the July 22, 2004, report of the National Commission on 
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the Privacy and Civil 
Liberties Oversight Board was established by the Intelligence Reform and 
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. It consists of five members appointed 
by and serving at the pleasure of the President. The Board is part of 
the White House Office within the Executive Office of the President and 
supported by an Executive Director and staff.

The Board advises the President and other senior executive branch 
officials to ensure that concerns with respect to privacy and civil 
liberties are appropriately considered in the implementation of all 
laws, regulations, and executive branch policies related to efforts to 
protect the Nation against terrorism. This includes advising on whether 
adequate guidelines, supervision, and oversight exist to protect these 
important legal rights of all Americans. In addition, the Board is 
specifically charged with responsibility for reviewing the terrorism 
information sharing practices of executive branch departments and 
agencies to determine whether guidelines designed to appropriately 
protect privacy and civil liberties are being followed, including those 
issued by the President on December 16, 2005. In the course of 
performing these functions within the executive branch, the Board seeks 
the views of private sector, non-profit and academic institutions, 
Members of Congress, and all other interested parties and individuals on 
these issues.

This agency has published 13 articles 
<https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/search?conditions%5Bagency_ids%5D%5B%5D=438&skip_results=1#advanced> 
since 1994.

-- 
Emma J. Llansó
Policy Counsel
Center for Democracy & Technology
1634 I Street NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
202-407-8818 | @cendemtech <https://twitter.com/#%21/CenDemTech> | 
@ellanso <https://twitter.com/#%21/ellanso>
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