A bipartisan agency met this week to begin research on U.S. government online surveillance programs.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board plans to release a report on the government programs later this year, and hosted a public meeting to begin its research, according to The Hill. Among the programs the group discussed were Prism and “upstream collection,” which allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect data from traffic along internet cables.
Intelligence officials explained at the meeting how they handle Americans' information that is “incidentally” collected. They also argued against requiring intelligence agencies to receive additional permission to access the programs' data.
Recent revelations showed that the NSA infected millions of computers with malware to allow for surveillance.