[Infowarrior] - Civil liberties board has 1st session

[Richard Forno]

(c/o PWR)

Posted on Tue, Dec. 05, 2006
Civil liberties board has 1st session
HOPE YEN
Associated Press
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20061205134710177

WASHINGTON - Civil liberties advocates urged a White House privacy board
Tuesday to aggressively review the government's warrantless surveillance
program, even as they questioned whether it has the power to do so.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, which was created in late 2004 after
a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission, was holding its first hearing
with testimony from nongovernment experts on ways to protect Americans'
rights during the war on terror.

Its five members, which left the agenda open, at times found themselves
under scrutiny.

"This board needs to bring a little sunshine," Caroline Frederickson,
director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office, said in her prepared
testimony. She said she was disappointed that panel members recently praised
the safeguards of the surveillance program that a federal judge initially
ruled as illegal.

"It remains clear that this program was built outside of, and in direct
contradiction to, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Fourth
Amendment guaranteed protections," she said. "This panel's integrity and
usefulness will be questioned if it dodges its duty to undertake a full
review."

Privacy officers from the Office of Director of National Intelligence,
Terrorist Screening Center and the departments of Justice and Homeland
Security were also scheduled to attend a hearing that the board described as
a "listening session."

The panel was created as a compromise between Congress and the White House
amid growing public concern about the government's tactics in the war on
terror, including the eavesdropping program, a financial transactions
tracking system and secret CIA prisons where terrorism suspects have been
interrogated.

Bush appointed Carol Dinkins, a Houston Republican, to chair the board. A
longtime friend of the Bush family, she was treasurer of Bush's first
campaign for governor of Texas, and a longtime partner in the law firm of
Vinson & Elkins, where Attorney General Alberto Gonzales once was a partner.

The panel's other GOP members include vice chairman Alan Raul, a Washington
attorney, former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and former
Ambassador Francis Taylor. Former Clinton White House counsel Lanny Davis is
the lone Democrat.

The board does not have subpoena power, and its annual reports to Congress
can be vetted by the White House. The members serve at the pleasure of Bush,
and Gonzales has final say over whether officials must comply with the
board's recommendations.

After a delay of more than a year, board members last week received
classified briefings on the National Security Agency's surveillance program
as well as the administration's program to monitor international banking
transactions.

Raul and Davis have said in interviews that they were impressed by the
protections and indicated that Americans might be "more reassured" if they
knew all the details.

But on Tuesday, privacy advocates said they were worried the board might be
missing the point.

"We continue to be troubled by the argument that a president has no
obligation to follow the law or respect other constitutional guarantees
whenever he invokes national security as a justification for his actions,"
David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said in his
prepared remarks to the panel.

Frederickson said she was not confident of the board's ability to get
meaningful information from government agencies. Americans might be better
off with legislation introduced by Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. and
Christopher Shays, R-Conn., that would make the board independent from the
president, she said.

The board's first report to Congress is due in March.

---

Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/privacyboard/