Kavanaugh, Klayman, and the Fourth Amendment

This report does not directly recommend the bulk collection surveillance at issue inKlayman, nor does it make the argument that such a program would have prevented the 9/11 attacks.   In fact, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board ’s (PCLOB) 2014report on the NSA ’s bulk telephony surveillance program, published before Kavanaugh’sKlayman concurrence, found that the program was not a critically important part of the ongoing War on Terror:Based on the information provided to the Board, we have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation. Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack. And we believe that in only one instance over the past seven years has the program arguably contributed to the identification of an unknown terrorism suspect. In that case, moreover, the suspect was not involved in planning a terrorist attack and there is reason to believe that the FBI may have discovered him without the contribution of the NSA ’s program.Even in those instances where telephone records collected under Section 215 offered additional information about the contacts of a known terrorism suspect, in nearly all cases the benefits provided have been minimal — generally limited to corroborating in...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs