Obama Panel Recommends New Limits on NSA Spying ⇥ nytimes.com

When the panel membership was announced, it was widely panned by critics calling it “questionable” and “illusory“. But, surprisingly enough, the resulting report (PDF) is actually a decent set of recommendations. It’s not as comprehensive as I, or indeed many, would have liked, but it’s a step in the right direction.

I’m about halfway through the report as of writing this, and I was pleasantly surprised to see this recommendation on page 30:

We recommend that, in the absence of a specific and compelling showing, the US Government should follow the model of the Department of Homeland Security, and apply the Privacy Act of 1974 in the same way to both US persons and non-US persons.

This is broadly in-line with what I have been asking:

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights have been held up as an example of human rights affordances and protections, to which I ask: “So why are non-American humans undeserving of being protected according to these rights? Shouldn’t the US be strong enough to treat others in accordance with their own laws?”.

I’m very pleased that the review panel considered a similar opinion.