A review panel created by President Obama to guide reforms to US government surveillance did not discuss any changes to the National Security Agency's controversial activities at its first meeting, according to two participants.

The panel, which met for the first time this week in the Truman Room of the White House conference center, was touted by Obama in August as a way for the government to consider readjusting its surveillance practices after hearing outsiders' concerns.

But two attendees of the Monday meeting said the discussion was dominated by the interests of major technology firms, and the session did not address making any substantive changes to the controversial mass collection of Americans' phone data and foreigners' internet communications, which can include conversations with Americans.

Robert Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and an attendee, told the Guardian the he "did not hear much discussion" of changes to the bulk surveillance activities.

"My fear is it's a simulacrum of meaningful reform," said Sascha Meinrath, a vice president of the New America Foundation, an influential Washington think tank, and the director of the Open Technology Institute, who also attended. "Its function is to bleed off pressure, without getting to the meaningful reform."

The Obama administration and the tech firms involved have intimated that they are interested in changing the surveillance activities, although neither has committed to concrete steps.

That was how Obama portrayed the creation of the panel on 9 August, when he announced its creation in a press conference: "They'll consider how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used."

But critics have noted from the start that the panel is composed of intelligence insiders, former White House officials and Obama advisers.

Michael Morell, a former deputy CIA director, is a member, as is Richard Clarke, a White House counter-terrorism aide to three presidents. Cass Sunstein, a former White House regulatory staffer who is married to the new US ambassador to the United Nations; Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor; and Peter Swire, a Georgia Tech professor and former aide to Obama and Bill Clinton, round out the panel. All attended the Monday meeting.

During its first round of meetings, the panel, known as the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, separated two groups of outside advisers. One group included civil libertarian organizations such as the ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. It met in a conference room on K and 20th Streets. Morrell and Clarke did not attend.

The other, which met in the White House Conference Center, included technology companies that have participated – sometimes uneasily and at court behest – in NSA surveillance. All five panel members participated.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo sent representatives to the inaugural hearing, chaired by Swire. Also in attendance were Alan Davidson of MIT; Atkinson; and Meinrath. There was also representatives of the Information Technology Industry Council, Rackspace, and the Software and Information Industry Association.

Meinrath said the technology industry's concerns dominated the 90-minute session. He came away with the impression "they were going through the roles. It was almost scripted."

Atkinson said the panel did not discuss the scope of NSA surveillance. "The agenda was not, 'should the government do more or do less'," he told the Guardian. "[There was] some discussion of having more judicial oversight, not having the NSA have this carte blanche access, but to be fair, the discussion was principally shaped by the commission, the taskforce."

Marc Rotenberg, the president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the White House "should not be segregating the civil liberties groups and the tech industry." Rotenberg said: "We need to be on the same page when it comes to surveillance reform."

Several internet firms, including Yahoo, have taken legal action to compel the government to lift gag orders preventing from disclosing to their customers the extent of their cooperation with the NSA. The Justice Department is nearing completion of a review to declassify a 2008 order Yahoo wants released ostensibly showing a secret surveillance court demanded data from the company.

The tech firms say they wish to demonstrate they were coerced, legally, into co-operation.

That perspective was aired in the meeting, as was the companies' concern that their global business would suffer from their associations with US surveillance.

The companies argue that their participation with the NSA "is a lot less than the perception," Atkinson said. If the government lifted its gag orders on the companies, the co-operation would appear "a lot less onerous and problematic for civil liberties. The companies feel hamstrung," Atkinson said. He also suggested the government disclose what data foreign countries require companies to surrender, so a "more level playing field" could result for US businesses.

The companies were also concerned with the NSA undermining encryption standards used for their online business, a story broken last week by the Guardian in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica.

"There was one discussion about how the NSA has been involved in the global encryption community, [to] develop better standards. The NSA won't be welcomed anymore in these conversations," Atkinson said, citing a breakdown of trust.

"There's a bright line between code cracking and undermining crypto," Atkinson said.

Meinrath said he was surprised by the circumscribed discussion: "I didn't find anyone saying the bulk surveillance is horrendous and bad for our democracy." He declined to discuss specifics. "The companies are concerned that it impacts their bottom line. My concern is they're looking to preserve the function of the NSA," Meinrath said.

Asked if that was the perspective of the government or the companies, Meinrath replied: "I'm not sure you can separate the two."

That was not how CEOs from the companies portrayed themselves this week.

At the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in San Francisco, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said Wednesday that her company had a long history of being "skeptical of – and has been scrutinizing – these kinds of orders" for bulk data collection.

Defending the company's compliance with gag orders about the surveillance while contesting it in the Fisa court, Mayer said: "When you lose and you don't comply, it's treason."

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the conference that "the government blew it" when it came to balancing privacy and security.

Facebook and Yahoo did not respond to requests for comment about the meeting. Microsoft and Google spokespeople confirmed their attendance, but declined to comment further. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment beyond confirming a list of attendees at the meeting.

The meeting itself struck Meinrath as bizarre. Representatives from the technology firms were identified around the table not by their names, but by placards listing their employers. There was minimal technical discussion of surveillance mechanisms despite the presence of technology companies; Meinrath took the representatives to be lawyers, not technologists.

When it appeared like the meeting would discuss a surveillance issue in a sophisticated way, participants and commissioners suggested it be done in a classified meeting. Meinrath interpreted that as a maneuver to exclude his more-critical viewpoint.

The White House deferred comment to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which did not respond.

The panel is supposed to present director of national intelligence James Clapper with its initial findings by October, which Clapper is to pass to Obama, with final recommendations to follow in December. During a meeting Wednesday between national security adviser Susan Rice and the Brazilian foreign minister, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, the White House cited the panel as a reassurance against future surveillance abuses.

"As the president has previously stated, his national security team – informed by the work of key experts – is undertaking a broad review to examine US intelligence activities to ensure that they are appropriately tailored and reflective of policy decisions about what we should do, versus what we can do," national security council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a Wednesday statement describing the meeting with Figueiredo.

But Meinrath is skeptical that any such recommendations will be more than cosmetic.

He considers the nascent panel a looming missed opportunity to reconfigure surveillance to better respect civil liberties and restore the "trust" Obama worried about in announcing the panel's creation.

"They'll come out with what they call bold reforms, but will just make sure we do the same things," Meinrath said. "And that would be a disaster."

Atkinson was more hopeful. "My sense is that the [panel] will provide real, substantive recommendations to the president that will help improve the situation, but after that, I really don't know," he said.

Asked if he thought the panel would recommend changes to the bulk surveillance activities themselves, Atkinson replied: "I don't know."