(WASHINGTON) — Earlier today, the New York Times reported that President Trump threatened to terminate Democratic Members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) if they do not resign by tomorrow, January 23. Terminating these members of the Board will leave it without the quorum necessary for it to commence investigations and issue reports that are crucial to protecting civil liberties in governmental anti-terrorism programs.
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) President Alexandra Reeve Givens responded to the news with the following statement:
“President Trump’s attempt to expel members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a brazen effort to destroy an independent watchdog that has protected Americans and exposed surveillance abuse under Democratic and Republican administrations alike.
“PCLOB was created specifically to provide oversight over the kinds of government actions where the need for secrecy makes people most vulnerable to abuses of power.
“This effort to shoot the watchdog should set off alarm bells for how the President and his appointees seek to wield the government’s broad surveillance powers. And it could torpedo trans-Atlantic trade and data sharing agreements that depended on the PCLOB’s assurance of oversight when they were brokered.
“Congress cannot ignore this threat to erode a key agency charged with protecting Americans’ fundamental freedoms. The Senate must focus on this in the forthcoming confirmation votes for intelligence community leaders and take bipartisan action to ensure the PCLOB can continue its vital work with the independence that is critical to its operations.”
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has existed for almost two decades as a bipartisan independent oversight entity. It has been essential to providing public information about misuse and false claims over intelligence surveillance. One of its earliest reports debunked claims from the Intelligence Community that an expiring provision of the USA PATRIOT Act had thwarted dozens of terrorist attacks. That provision was later allowed to expire. Last year PCLOB issued a comprehensive report on FISA Section 702 that brought abuses of the law to public light. PCLOB inquiries into counterterrorism programs resulted in the declassification of scores of facts that drove Congressional hearings and spurred on legislative reforms.
The Board’s creation was originally recommended by the 9/11 Commission, and established as an independent entity in 2007 as part of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. The PCLOB Members President Trump seeks to remove each received unanimous bipartisan support when appointed, being confirmed by the Senate by voice vote. The last time the Board lost its quorum was in the context of a re-organization, and it took the President and Congress more than four years to restore the quorum so the Board could function again.
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The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is the leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization fighting to advance civil rights and civil liberties in the digital age. We shape technology policy, governance, and design with a focus on equity and democratic values. Established in 1994, CDT has been a trusted advocate for digital rights since the earliest days of the internet. The organization is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has a Europe Office in Brussels, Belgium.