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VII. (U) Statement of Board Members Ed Felten and Travis

LeBlanc 327

(U) We appreciate the tireless work of the PCLOB staff, the thoughtfulness of our
colleagues, and the unyielding dedication of the men and women of the national security
establishment who every day commit themselves to protecting our great country. The threat of
terrorism—both domestic and foreign—is very real and has taken a long toll on our nation’s
history. It is in this context that the Board conducts oversight of the USA FREEDOM Act CDR
program, mindful of our mission to balance privacy and civil liberties with national security.
Together, we join the Board in issuing this Report to enhance transparency and public
understanding of this discontinued program.

(U) We write separately to stress our view that the USA FREEDOM Act CDR program
should remain shuttered and the program should not be reauthorized. We reach this conclusion
for three reasons. First, the program produced minimal national security value. Second, the
program’s expense is disproportionate to its value. And third, the program intruded on the
privacy and civil liberties of millions of Americans who were not subjects of individualized
suspicion. On balance, the privacy and civil liberties impacts, combined with the program’s
costs, outweighed the program’s national security value. Also, we do not join the Board’s
constitutional analysis for the reasons stated below. Finally, we disagree with suggestions that
the same program with data from different media would solve the problems experienced with the
USA FREEDOM Act CDR program.

I. (U) The value of the CDR program was not worth the risks and

cost.

(U) In August 2019, following three years of operation of the USA FREEDOM Act CDR
program, the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged in a letter to select Members of
Congress that

[NSA] has suspended the [USA FREEDOM Act] call detail records program . . .
and deleted the call detail records acquired under this authority. This decision
was made after balancing the program’s relative intelligence value, associated
costs, and compliance and data integrity concerns caused by the unique

327 (U) Statement from Travis LeBlanc: While I do join the Board in issuing this document to provide transparency
about the facts and history of the program so that Congress and the public may scrutinize its value, I respectfully
decline to adopt the document’s conclusions beyond transparency about the USA FREEDOM Act CDR program.
Statement from Ed Felten: I join the Board’s report in full, except that I disagree with the constitutional analysis, for
the reasons discussed in this statement.

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