The Panel Decides

A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks.

[...]

While Stone said the mass collection of telephone call records was a “logical program” from the NSA’s perspective, one question the White House panel was seeking to answer was whether it had actually stopped “any [terror attacks] that might have been really big.”

“We found none,” said Stone.

[...]

Stone was one of five members of the White House review panel – and the only one without any intelligence community experience – that this week produced a sweeping report recommending that the NSA’s collection of phone call records be terminated to protect Americans’ privacy rights.

The panel made that recommendation after concluding that the program was “not essential in preventing attacks.”

[...]

The conclusions of the panel’s reports were at direct odds with public statements by President Barack Obama and U.S. intelligence officials. “Lives have been saved,” Obama told reporters last June, referring to the bulk collection program and another program that intercepts communications overseas. “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information.”

  NBC

But, it was my understanding that the panel recommended it's enough to let the phone companies keep the data. How is that much different? Phone company employees, rather than NSA employees have access to the records. And when the government wants them turned over, I haven’t seen much evidence that the phone companies won’t willingly give them up.

“My emphatic view," he said, "is that a person who has access to classified information -- the revelation of which could damage national security -- should never take it upon himself to reveal that information.”

Stone added, however, that he would not necessarily reject granting an amnesty to Snowden in exchange for the return of all his documents, as was recently suggested by a top NSA official. “It’s a hostage situation,” said Stone. Deciding whether to negotiate with him to get all his documents back was a “pragmatic judgment. I see no principled reason not to do that.”

Since Snowden is not in possession of the documents, how is he going to return them? What hostage situation exists?

He also said one reason the telephone records program is not effective is because, contrary to the claims of critics, it actually does not collect a record of every American’s phone call. Although the NSA does collect metadata from major telecommunications carriers such as Verizon and AT&T, there are many smaller carriers from which it collects nothing.

[...]

When panel members asked NSA officials why they didn’t expand the program to include smaller carriers, the answer they gave was “money,” Stone said. “They were setting financial priorities,” said Stone, and that was “really revealing” about how useful the bulk collection of telephone calls really was.

Should these people be prosecuted for aiding and abetting the enemy? Now al Qaeda terrorists will know to use small phone companies.

Asked Wednesday about the surveillance panel’s conclusions about telephone record collection, White House press secretary Jay Carney said that “the president does still believe and knows that this program is an important piece of the overall efforts that we engage in to combat threats against the lives of American citizens and threats to our overall national security.”

Because facts are irrelevant.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

PS:  The panel also suggested National Security Letters be discontinued and recommended the NSA put in place technologies that would prevent any further Snowden-type incidents.  I'm sure they are already on the last point.