Litigation

Editorials Urge Obama to Fill Privacy Board

By Peter Hardin

Editorial pages are calling on President Obama  to make a priority of nominating members to the defunct Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Obama’s slowness in picking members is sparking new criticism.

The board first was constituted under the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, and its members were terminated by January 2008 under legislation passed by Congress?with an understanding that new members would be picked and the reconstituted board would begin operating. That hasn?t happened, however, as Gavel Grab has reported earlier.

A Washington Post editorial recently explained how the board was established to “preview proposed initiatives to ensure that only those that pass civil liberties muster are put in play.” It recounted how 22 lawmakers recently urged Obama to nominate members, and a bipartisan coalition of civil liberties groups has done likewise. The editorial then criticized Obama:

“By dragging his feet and letting the board sit vacant for more than a year, the president has implicitly sent a message that the board’s work is not important. It’s time for him to correct this.”

That editorial followed by several days a news story in the Washington Post headlined, “Lawmakers, advocates push administration for appointments to privacy board.”

Meanwhile an editorial in the Times-News in Hendersonville, N.C. similarly called on Obama to fill the panel:

“The problem may be that Obama, like most presidents, has no real desire to fill an independent board that exists to evaluate and criticize his administration’s possible trampling of privacy and civil liberties. That’s understandable, but it’s not justifiable. Obama should fill the board, and it should take up its duties as soon as possible.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 16, 2010 (boomark / email).