The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, established by Congress, concluded that the NSA collection of telephone records of millions of Americans is unconstitutional and is issuing a report calling for an end to the program on Thursday.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency, said that the practices by the NSA violate Constitutional provisions that protect free speech rights that prohibit “unreasonable search and seizures.”

This new report comes after President Obama’s announcement last week where he called for tightened guidelines for the data collection done by the National Security Agency. Obama had stated that he had consulted with the board before making his statement last week.

The existence of the NSA program was revealed last year by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, when he copied millions of documents then began releasing them to the media. It is now known that the NSA tracks millions of calls each and every day, harvesting the numbers called, how long the call lasted, and the time that the call was placed.

The board said in its 238-page report, “We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.” According to PCLOB, the program has only helped authorities identify one terrorist in the last seven years , but also said that law enforcement would have found the suspect without the data collection by the NSA anyway. The report went on to say, “Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

The board voted 3-2 to release the report, with three Democrats on the board calling the NSA program illegal while the two Republicans on the board dissenting. The three defenders of the report were Chairman David Medine, a former FTC official under the Clinton Administration, retired federal appeals court judge Patricia Wald, appointed by President Carter, and James Dempsey with the Center for Democracy and Technology. Dissenting were Rachel Brand and Elisebeth Cook, both of whom served in the George W. Bush administration’s Justice Department.

Alaska’s Senator Murkowski responded to President Obama’s speech last week, saying, “President Obama told Americans he ‘takes our privacy rights into account’ with the N.S.A.’s overly broad surveillance policies – that’s clearly not enough. Americans deserve privacy protection, not mere consideration. It is up to Congress to make the necessary reforms, such as those contained in the USA Freedom Act that I co-sponsored. I have long been wary of the Patriot Act, and this administration has clearly overstepped its bounds within that law. Merely doubling down with more surveillance protocols and bureaucracy is not enough. I am committed to restoring a sound, American balance between privacy and security.”

The Obama Administration has not as yet made a comment on the release of the report.