It has been an honor to have served the past three years as the first Chairman of the independent, bipartisan Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the only federal agency charged with the crucial mission of ensuring that there is an appropriate balance between executive branch efforts to protect our nation from terrorism and the need to protect our privacy and civil liberties.

Our agency only came into existence in the summer of 2012, and it wasn’t until May 2013 that I was confirmed by the Senate to assume the role of the agency’s first Chairman. I started work the first week of June 2013, and just days later, news organizations began reporting on Edward Snowden’s unauthorized disclosure of classified information related to National Security Agency (NSA) programs. These disclosures caused a great deal of concern both over the extent to which they had the potential to damage national security and over the nature and scope of the surveillance programs they purported to reveal. A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. Senators asked PCLOB to investigate the two NSA programs initially disclosed and to provide an unclassified report “so that the public and Congress can have a long overdue debate.” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also requested that the Board consider the operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which approved the programs, and President Obama met with the Board and requested that it examine where our nation’s counterterrorism efforts and values come into tension.

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In response to these requests and despite being such a new and not yet fully operational agency, the Board immediately initiated a study of these surveillance programs. PCLOB truly hit the ground running and has not stopped since.

In January 2014, the Board issued its Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted Under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT ACT and on the Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.Later that year, the Board released its Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

I am extraordinarily proud of these reports and the work of the PCLOB. In addition to the contributions these reports have made to the national dialog, our work has led to important concrete reforms. Combined, these reports made 22 recommendations regarding steps the government should take to enhance the protection of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties and to strengthen the transparency of the government’s surveillance efforts, without jeopardizing counterterrorism efforts. All of our recommendations have been accepted and implemented in full or in part. In addition, Congress’ passage of the USA FREEDOM Act last year implemented the Board’s most significant recommendation to date, namely to end the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records.

I recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the reauthorization of the Section 702 surveillance program, which enables the government to collect the contents of communications by non-U.S. persons outside of the U.S. As the Board found in its 2014 report, the program has proven to be a valuable intelligence tool. But as Congress considers reauthorizing the program, which sunsets on December 31, 2017, I have recommended several reforms that build upon recommendations made by the Board in its report. For example, the government should develop a method for quantifying how many Americans have had their communications “incidentally” collected. Furthermore, the government should be required to obtain judicial approval prior to searching its databases for such collected communications. This will be an important debate in the next Congress, and I am confident that PCLOB and its Section 702 report will continue to be an invaluable resource during this process.

On July 1, 2016, I will step down as PLCOB Chairman to consult with CGAP (the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor), a development organization, advising on privacy and consumer protection for lower-income financial consumers in developing countries, issues that are dearly important to me.

I am proud of PCLOB’s accomplishments. As the threats to our nation increase and evolve, so does the need to balance privacy and civil liberties with efforts to counter terrorism. PCLOB has a unique mission that is crucial to this national discussion.

David Medine is chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.