The White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has always been something of a joke. The panel was created on the recommendation of the 9\/11 Commission, which encouraged the administration to have an internal panel to watch for civil liberties violations.<\/p>\n
Grudgingly, the White House agreed to establish the board, but then waited a year before actually appointing any members. Then, when Bush named his “bipartisan” choices, he picked Dems like Lanny Davis, an enthusiastic Lieberman ally. Last week, we learned<\/a> that the Bush gang wouldn’t even let the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board report to Congress without first vetting the panel’s report.<\/p>\n Now we know why<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Bush administration made more than 200 revisions to the first report of a civilian board that oversees government protection of personal privacy, including the deletion of a passage on anti-terrorism programs that intelligence officials deemed “potentially problematic” intrusions on civil liberties, according to a draft of the report obtained by The Washington Post. […]<\/p>\n “I think that kind of involvement does a disservice to any notion of independence by the board and therefore subtracts greatly from the necessary independence that would give the board credibility,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, which recommended the creation of the privacy board.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It’s the typical White House whitewash. It wasn’t enough that the president hand-picked the panel’s members, and it wasn’t enough to limit the board’s access — the Bush gang had to use its trusted editing pen to remove any suggestion that they might be doing something wrong.<\/p>\n To his credit, Lanny Davis responded to this by resigning. That’s clearly the right call, but I have to wonder, what did Davis expect? The board can’t demand documents; it can’t force bureaucrats who actually implement the program — and who might be aware of malfeasance — to speak with them under oath. Instead, its sole and complete authority is to take the administration at its word.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nConsider this description<\/a> of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s power.<\/p>\n