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Title: Mysterious privacy board touted by Obama has deep government ties
Source:
guardian.co.uk
URL Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201 ... ivil-liberties-obama-secretive
Published: Jun 21, 2013
Author: Dan Roberts
Post Date: 2013-07-07 15:03:59 by GreyLmist
Keywords: Privacy & Civil Liberties Boar, Potemkin Village, NSA, Surveillance
Views: 194
Comments: 23
Photograph by Dan Roberts for the Guardian: A security guard at 2100 K Street in Washington said he had no record of the mystery body that claimed to occupy suite 500. The body charged by President Obama with protecting the civil liberties and privacy of the American people exists in shadows almost as dark as the intelligence agencies it is designed to oversee. The Privacy & Civil Liberties Board (PCLOB) was due to meet Obama at the White House on Friday afternoon at 3pm in the situation room to discuss growing concerns over US surveillance of phone and internet records – or, at least, that's what unnamed "senior administration officials" said would happen. The meeting did not appear on the president's official diary issued to journalists, nor has the PCLOB issued much public confirmation beyond saying "further questions were warranted". To be fair, that might be because the PCLOB does not have a website, nor an email address, nor indeed any independent full-time staff. Its day-to-day administration is currently run by a government official on secondment from the office of the Director of National Intelligence. In fact, even the office address given out by the PCLOB in the few public letters that exist does not appear to be functioning. A security guard at the federal buildings on 2100 K Street in Washington said he had no record of the mystery body that claimed to occupy suite 500. On Tuesday, Obama announced that the PCLOB would be at the heart of his efforts to address the growing scandal over the National Security Agency's surveillance programmes. "I'll be meeting with them and what I want to do is to set up and structure a national conversation not only about these two programs but also about the general problem of these big data sets because this is not going to be restricted to government entities," he told Charlie Rose in a TV interview. Yet, the White House appears to be scrambling to set up infrastructure that can support such a conversation and has placed its trust in a body with a chequered history of independent scrutiny. Set up as an agency within the Executive Office of the President in 2004, the PCLOB for many years had no members at all. After criticism, in the words of a congressional report, that it "appeared to be presidential appendage, devoid of the capability to exercise independent judgement and assessment or to provide impartial findings and recommendations", it was reconstituted as an independent agency in August 2007 on the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. But even then, oversight moved at a glacial pace. Obama nominated two members in January 2011 and a further three in December 2012 but the Senate only confirmed four of them in August 2012. The fifth, chairman David Medine, was confirmed just last month. Obama told Charlie Rose that it was "made up of independent citizens, including some fierce civil libertarians". But there is little in the published biographies to elaborate on that. Medine was a partner in the DC law firm WilmerHale and previously served as a senior advisor to the White House National Economic Council. From 1992 to 2000, he worked at the Federal Trade Commission and previously worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and US Securities and Exchange Commission. The White House says he has long been interested in "internet privacy and data security". Three of the others meeting Obama on Friday have also worked for the government or courts. Rachel Brand is now a regulatory lawyer at the US Chamber of Commerce, but formerly worked at the Department of Justice. Patricia Wald is a former DC appeals court judge and Elisebeth Collins Cook is also a lawyer at Wilmer Hale, who once worked for the Department of Justice. Only Jim Dempsey, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, does not appear to have worked for the government or served on the judiciary. The Washington Post described him as "a reasoned and respected civil liberties advocate routinely summoned to [Capitol] Hill by both political parties to advise lawmakers about technology and privacy issues." Following a meeting with intelligence chiefs on Wednesday, Medine said: "Based on what we've learned so far, further questions are warranted." He told the Guardian by email on Friday that the board would issue a statement after the meeting with Obama. NSA director Keith Alexander implied it understood the need for such programmes. "My deputy met with the board yesterday and actually briefed them for a couple of hours on both programs so that they understood," he told a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday. Official board meetings of the PCLOB are closed to the public, because of the classified issues to be discussed, a notice published on the Federal Register said. In his email, Medine told the Guardian that the board was moving ahead with plans to step up its operations. He said: "The bipartisan members of the independent board have been at work since last September. In the three weeks since I became chairman, the board is moving rapidly forward to complete its efforts to operate a website and hire permanent staff, the latter being something only the chairman has authority to do." A senior administration official defended the White House's transparency record. "Over the past few weeks, in the wake of disclosures related to sensitive NSA collection activities, the president directed the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to declassify information to better contextualize these programs, correct misrepresentations, and provide an opportunity for the dialogue he welcomes about the right balance between national security and privacy," said the official. "In fact, yesterday (Thursday), at the request of the President, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco directed the DNI – in consultation with the DOJ – to review Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions and filings relevant to the programs and to determine what additional information the Government can responsibly share about the sensitive and necessarily classified activities undertaken to keep the public safe." The official said the administration was seeking "to declassify a significant amount of information regarding these programs." "The president's direction is that as much information as possible be made public while being mindful of the need to protect sources and methods and National Security." the unnamed official added. "In the last few weeks, we have provided enhanced transparency on, and engaged in robust public discussion." Speaking later White House spokesman Jay Carney said the PCLOB was required to report to Congress at least twice a year. "The president will be meeting with a range of stakeholders in the coming weeks on these issues," added Carney. 4.45pm ET update The board issued a statement after meeting Obama. It reads, in full: We discussed with the President our recommendation that every effort be made to publicly provide the legal rationale for the programs in order to enhance the public discussion and debate about the legality and propriety of the country's counterterrorism efforts. As we informed the President, and have informed Senators in response to a specific inquiry, we will produce a public report containing our conclusions and recommendations. Poster Comment: Some article Comments: "That's quite a story. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) was created in 2004, but ... the director was only recently appointed, the board has no staff and only one board member has a background in civil liberties. The National Security Agency (NSA), on the other hand, has 40,000 employees. Do the PCLOB members even have security clearances?" "Well, it's doing a great job protecting privacy. Its own privacy, that is. The idea of a body charged with protecting privacy and civil liberties operating in secret is more than a bit ironic." "The idea of a body charged with protecting privacy and civil liberties operating in secret is more than a bit ironic." "after 7 years, we have some ill-contrived privacy watchdog who will do absolutely nothing and their members will collect large sums of money similar to executives who sit on boards a few times a year" "talk about building a ... Potemkin Village." "They even concoct a Potemkin panel full of government lawyers to explain this to the public upon whom they spy. This Potemkin panel will graciously produce a 'public report' which will explain the legal rationale so that the public can discuss and debate the 'legality and propriety' of spying on everyone in the world." "Speaking of Jason Bourne, didn't the last one portray these exact capabilities, i.e. they showed the CIA intercepting a British journalist's communications through a system that looked like it was monitoring all communications en masse? And there was some moral curve to the plot, when one of the characters said it was wrong for the CIA to have this power and other assassination powers (aka Obama's drones)? I do remember for certain that the Guardian was also in that movie, as the newspaper that was doing the leaking. All a very strange coincidence." "As Conor Fridersdorf noted in the Atlantic, why is it that the decision to use 'indicator of criminal activity' as a reason for the NSA retaining an email, is, itself, a secret? That has nothing to do with terrorism or national security. Why should the FACT that such communications are maintained, be secret and unaccountable?" "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guardians?" "NSA is undermining the US Constitution and spying on honest hard-working US citizens - an act of war against the United States of America." Privacy & Civil Liberties Board at the heart of Obama's effort to address NSA surveillance scandal is itself a Washington enigma
We were very pleased to meet with the President today. We informed the President that the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent, bipartisan federal agency, is undertaking a review of the recently revealed surveillance programs as a top priority. We conveyed our appreciation for the briefings we have received to date. We informed the President that we plan to seek additional briefings, including as to the effectiveness and practical aspects of these programs. We informed the President that as part of our oversight effort, we are scheduling a full day public workshop to seek input from invited experts, academics and advocacy organizations as to the legal bases for these programs and potential options to address privacy and civil liberties concerns.
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#13. To: GreyLmist (#0)
The justification for secrecy is to maintain the govt's high standards of investigative efficiency. For instance, a guy I knew sent an e-mail to his aunt, and it was well documented that her ex-husband's uncle's first wife's cousin's son once donated to an Arab Christian Toys For Tots Program. Needless to say, much of the funds collected were used to buy replica firearms to institute early familiarity and training in the use of weapons. It was not a great leap across the assumption gap to suspect that in the near future those children will have cultivated a fondness for real weapons, and those weapons will be supplied (through donations) to kill Jewish people. Of course they'll keep the e-mail as they are legally empowered to do. Any questions?
Many like where would anyone get the wrongful notion that they're authorized to violate the 4th Amendment so? Not from the Constitution. :)
------- Roger that. As the article clearly stated the phantom group (which we are supposed to assume is to protect the integrity of the law even though no such mission statement was ever offered) is jam packed with lawyers. President Obama knows too well as did President Bush before him that exceptions can be made to the law of the land now that lawyers are stepping up and writing opinions that virtually conjure up formerly non existent presidential powers. These powers are given the weight of statutory law by virtue of two presidents' cheerful acceptance of them, and the unspoken understanding that no article three judge will overrule them, and/or the majority of political hacks on the US Supreme Court will sustain them. These "legal signing statement alchemist lawyers" work in concert like ants, receiving pheromone signals from the highest court without ever having to appear or answer a single legal challenge to their newly discovered powers. So,they've simply discarded the "goddam piece of paper" by reclassifying it as nuisance trash, and under the exigent circumstances of The War On Terror it now lacks the legal weight to defeat their legal gibberish briefs. Both presidents welcomed these opinions as living genius overruling the dead hand that formerly bound them from mischief. Conclusion: Bush then Obama committed open treason, all enobled govt lawyers sided with them and the American people are now so dumbed down that they can no longer assert their rights. And rights we fail to assert are rights we forfeit. A starving DAWG in a filthy, forgotten backyard cage has no knowledge of the laws that ostensibly protect it from abuse and neglect. The animal simply makes the best of it even as its ribs start to show and mange eats it alive. And We The People my friend are now starving, mangy, forgotten mutts who have been betrayed by the govt and the compact we foolishly believed was to protect us. Some of us will howl in protest, but that just seems to disturb other dumb animals upon which the chains seem to bear lightly. It's an assault on several fronts as Adam Kokesh has an exploratory committee to run for congress after having demoralized the militia at a moment in time that couldn't have proven more timely if planned by the evildoers at Tavistock. Our reps and senators are too petrified to hold town halls in the meat world. (My senior senator called me to ask for my participation with a "telephone town hall meeting". I missed the call but a real United States Senator left a message on my machine!) The govt is stock piling ammo, the manufacturers have failed to meet the crushing civilian demand and we may with a single catalyst soon hear the second shot heard 'round the world. God Help us all. This rogue government will nape us all if we march under arms. And the new motto may be, "You can have my gun when you pry my blackened, charred fingers from around it."
Great (if awful) conclusion - great wordsmithing, thanks.
#20. To: Lod (#17)
Thank you.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest"As Conor Fridersdorf noted in the Atlantic, why is it that the decision to use 'indicator of criminal activity' as a reason for the NSA retaining an email, is, itself, a secret? That has nothing to do with terrorism or national security. Why should the FACT that such communications are maintained, be secret and unaccountable?"
#15. To: HOUNDDAWG (#13)
Any questions?
#16. To: GreyLmist (#15)
(Edited)
...where would anyone get the wrongful notion that they're authorized to violate the 4th Amendment so? Not from the Constitution. :)
#17. To: HOUNDDAWG (#16)
Replies to Comment # 17.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 17.