Last fall, after a series of questions emerged about Bush administration policies violating Americans’ privacy rights, White House officials insisted there was nothing to worry about. After all, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been keeping a close eye on all of the administration’s decisions, the Bush gang said. If there was anything untoward, the panel would expose the wrongdoing in its reports to Congress.
Without any digging at all, this raised red flags. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s members are all handpicked by the president, so the panel is not exactly an independent voice. But today, Roll Call notes an even bigger problem — the board’s reports to Congress have to be cleared by the White House.
The White House played an active role in vetting a new report to Congress from an oversight panel on civil liberties and national security, even as civil libertarians and the former chairmen of the 9/11 commission have faulted the panel for not making a more critical analysis of administration anti-terror programs.
Critics say the report’s somewhat cursory review of the civil rights impacts of anti-terror programs highlights the problem of placing an oversight board in the executive office of the president, and Congress is considering legislation to strengthen its independence.
The White House insists it did not alter the report’s conclusions. Since the Bush gang has such a strong track record, and has only been caught repeatedly altering agencies’ reports to fit the White House’s political agenda, why would anyone question their assurances?
The privacy board’s review of the NSA warrantless-domestic search program seems to have been particularly hollow.
The board official said the board felt that based on its limited resources, it should focus on the primary concern of Congress, which was “how the enhanced use of counterterrorism and national security tools would society would impact the lives of Americans.”
Regarding the NSA surveillance program, the official said, “We spent a lot of time as a board reviewing this. … If one were looking for a model of how to conduct careful circumscribed, audited, justified surveillance, this would be that model.”
Civil libertarians disagree strongly and say the report’s conclusions are indicative of the problems of having an oversight board operating out of the White House.
“This was the coup de grace that sort of made clear that the [board] is fluff and not substance,” said Tim Sparapani, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. “It cannot, unfortunately, stand in the role for which it was created … to be an independent bulwark against overzealous federal programs and agencies who are spying on Americans.”
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, agreed.
“I think structurally this arrangement is flawed,” he said. “That was suspected when it was established, and that has been made clear now with the last two years’ of experience.”
I often wonder why the Bush White House even bothers to go through the motions. The one level of oversight the president and his aides will tolerate ends up acquiring very little information and having its work vetted by the White House it’s supposed to be watching.