*Independent review board says NSA phone data program is illegal and should end** * By Ellen Nakashima, Thursday, January 23, 6:19 AM E-mail the writer An independent executive branch board has concluded that the National Security Agency's long-running program to collect billions of Americans' phone records is illegal and should end. In a strongly worded report to be issued Thursday, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) said that the statute upon which the program was based, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, "does not provide an adequate basis to support this program." The board's conclusion goes further than President Obama, who said in a speech Friday that he thought the NSA's database of records should be moved out of government hands but did not call for an outright halt to the program. The board had shared its conclusions with Obama in the days leading up to his speech. The divided panel also concluded that the program raises serious threats to civil liberties, has shown limited value in countering terrorism and is not sustainable from a policy perspective. "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," said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. "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." [...] Continua qui: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/independent-review-boa...