Hope and Fail

Civil liberties board still nonexistent

When President Obama took office a bit more than a year ago, his new administration made a big deal about its measures to increase civil liberty protections for foreigners — he promised to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay within a year, end military tribunals for suspected terrorists and ban the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on those caught on the battlefield of the war on terror.

But when it comes to protecting the civil liberties of Americans, the president has let his efforts languish.

Michael Isikoff reports in Newsweek:

When President Bush two years ago failed to name members to a federal board to monitor the protection of civil liberties, Democrats and activist groups were duly outraged, seeing it as one more example of his administration’s indifference to the subject.

But more than a year into a new presidency, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board—created by Congress in 2007—remains as much a cipher under Barack Obama as it was under George W. Bush. The White House has yet to nominate a single person to sit on the five-person board. It has no members, no staff, and no office.

Civil liberty advocacy groups have now written two letters to the president, as have Democratic representatives Jane Harman and Bennie Thompson, who chair a subcommittee on terrorism and the House Homeland Security Committee, respectively, asking that he appoint members to the board.

The response from the White House?

But when she recently raised the issue of the vacant board with Denis McDonough, one of the president’s top national-security advisers, Harman said the response she got back was “nothing,” just “we’re working on it.”

Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, reaffirmed a previous statement from the White House more than a month ago that the president will nominate members “soon.” But he declined to specify how soon. “The president is committed to constituting the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board,” he said.

In 2008, Obama wasn’t so nonchalant about the civil liberties board. His campaign Web site promised:

Give Real Authority to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board: Created by Congress and recommended by the 9/11 Commission, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board needs to be substantially reformed and empowered to safeguard against an erosion in American civil liberties. As president, Barack Obama will support efforts to strengthen the Board with subpoena powers and reporting responsibilities, will give the Board a robust mandate designed to protect American civil liberties and will demand transparency from the Board to ensure accountability.

Leaving the board vacant for more than a year doesn’t exactly equal “a robust mandate.” Quite the opposite.

In fact, ProPublica reported in July 2009 that the White House scrubbed references to the board from its Web site.

Is the president just giving lip service to protecting civil liberties? One quarter of his term has passed, and the board that is supposed to be review government practices to safeguard our rights is caught in bureaucratic limbo.

“What seemed so imperative under Bush has just dropped off the radar screen,” laments Alan Charles Raul, who served as vice chairman of the earlier Bush civil-liberties advisory board. Now, he says, “No one seems to care.”