International Herald Tribune Editorial - Under-the-rug oversight

International Herald Tribune Editorial - Under-the-rug oversight
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: December 29, 2006


The wondrously named Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board conducted its first public hearing the other day on the U.S. National Security Agency's illegal eavesdropping program. If you expected it to discover any truths about the secret program, you can forget it. The board spent its time explaining why it was more important to work from within the administration than to challenge it. Thus wags the tail of a watchdog with neither bark nor bite.

The board was created two years ago by the White House and the Republican Congress as a pale substitute for the independent monitor recommended by the Sept. 11 commission. Its members (four Republicans and one lone Democrat) serve at the pleasure of the administration. It has a paltry budget and no subpoena power, and any requests for documents can be vetoed by the attorney general.

It's so low on the totem pole that it didn't even get a formal briefing on the administration's eavesdropping on American citizens until October — almost a year after the warrantless surveillance program had been uncloaked by the news media.

Right now, the panel is best suited to polishing up the handles on the White House doors. But its members make the point that the board is no more than Congress created it to be. All the more reason to repair the damage as Americans wonder precisely how many liberties they have already sacrificed.

A bill to remake the board as an independent entity with subpoena power and a credible claim to oversight has been submitted by Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York, and Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut. It deserves a full and open review — which is more than the American public has been getting from its toothless watchdog.