Watching the Privacy Watchdog
Posted by Michael Link on February 15, 2007 at 02:11 PM
In keeping with the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, some lawmakers in Washington seek to make the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board more independent from the president. According to the Washington Post, the House version would "remove the board from the Executive Office of the President but keep it within the executive branch and give it subpoena power."
As the commission's vice chairman, Lee H. Hamilton, said yesterday: "We felt that you had to have a voice within the executive branch that reached across all of the departments of government with strong powers to protect our civil liberties."But the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is resisting proposals that would dramatically change its composition and powers. The battle is another sign of the changed political landscape, with the Democratic-controlled Congress pushing for stronger oversight of the Bush administration's counterterrorism programs.
The board, which took office in March 2006, made news in December when they held their first public meeting, where they "refused to answer any questions from the press, and stonewalled privacy advocates and academics on key questions about domestic spying."
Raul acknowledged in a roundabout way that the [warrantless wiretapping] data existed, but said it was too sensitive to release. Graves then asked if the board had pushed to have that data made public, as the Justice Department is required to do with typical spy wiretaps.Raul declined to say. "It is important for us to retain confidentiality on what recommendations we have and haven't made," he said.
"Congress put us in the office of the president, we didn't," Davis said. "Had Congress wanted us to be an incensement agency, it would have made us independent."
So now there is a push from the Congress to make the body more independent from the president. Because the Bush administration has frequently misled the American people on privacy issues, such as the domestic spying program collecting information on law-abiding citizens, some are looking to this board to serve as a watchdog.
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