Civil Liberties Board Member Resigns Over White House Tampering

A less reported government resignation on Monday was that of Democrat Lanny J. Davis from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board over deletions ordered by White House lawyers and aides to the 2007 Report to Congress.

The board, made up of Texas Republican Carol Dinkins, Chair; Republican former Solicitor General Ted Olson; Republican Allan Raul, Vice-chair; former ambassador- at-large for counter-terrorism, Francis Taylor; and Republican Californian Mark Robbins, Executive Director were "selected from among trustworthy and distinguished citizens outside the Federal Government who are qualified on the basis of achievement, experience, and independence." The board is "specifically charged with responsibility for reviewing the terrorism information sharing practices of executive branch departments and agencies to determine whether guidelines designed to appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties are being followed, including those issued by the President on December 16, 2005: Message to the Congress of the United States on Information Sharing; and Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies."
Davis's resignation letter cited "the extensive redlining of the board's report on to Congress by administration officials and the majority of the board's willingness to accept most" of the changes, stirring up an internal debate over the board's independence and investigative power. In other words, as a board member, Davis did not have the "independence" that was he and his group's charge.

The Washington Post reports that 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.

One section deleted by the administration would have divulged that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's civil liberties protection officer had "conducted reviews of the potentially problematic programs and has established procedures" for intelligence officials to file complaints about possible civil liberties and privacy abuses.

The passage would have been the first public disclosure of an internal review identifying such potentially intrusive intelligence programs. In its place, White House officials suggested more modest language, which ended up as a substitution in the final report.

"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.

The panel was created by Congress to address concerns about the government's growing anti-terrorism surveillance powers but placed under the supervision of the White House without investigative tools such as subpoenas. Some in Congress are pushing to make the board completely independent.