"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe" --
EDITOR'S NOTE: This
article offers a highly critical, but thoroughly documented, analysis of
President Obama's defense of the NSA surveillance program, as laid out in his
August 9, 2013 press conference. It is being released in three parts on
consecutive days: August 20-August 22.
Part
2: Obama's Hollow "Reforms" for Making the Surveillance Program More
Transparent.
In apparent connection with his May 23 promise of a "thorough review" of the NSA surveillance program, President Obama proposed at his August 9 news conference four ostensibly new "reforms":
1.
A New Board? The "privacy and civil liberties board" mentioned
by Obama on May 23d was, on first impression, also listed among Obama's four-point
plan announced August 9 as the gist of the "additional reforms" for
the "thorough review" he says he had previously "called
for." This plan is Obama's alternative to Snowden's adoption of Madison's
"public information" and Justice Brandeis'
disinfection by sunlight approaches to maintaining democracy. At the
presser Obama claimed that "we're forming a high level group of outside
experts." Since he claimed he had already "called for" this
reform in his NDU speech, it could only refer to the "privacy and civil
liberties board" he mentioned in that speech. The NSA
helpfully quotes this passage from the speech for the purpose of
imputing to it this very intention, in case it might otherwise be missed.
The
truth is that long before the NDU speech Obama had already formed such a group
or board. He had appointed government officials who comprise a "high level"
ex officio "group" of presumed "experts," to
"strengthen protections for the rights of Americans in the effective
performance of national security and homeland security functions." This
"President's Board on Safeguarding Americans' Civil Liberties" created
by George W. Bush's Executive
Order 13353 of August 27, 2004 included many experts who, before they
were inside Obama's administration, were "outside" the previous Bush
administration, which was caught in the act of similarly illegal global
surveillance.
Obama's
appointments of all the officials on this Board already gave Obama the capacity
for his own "high level" experts to make the "thorough review of
our surveillance operations" that Obama claims he "called for...before
Mr. Snowden made these leaks." This Board has not prevented Obama from
outdoing even Bush in the continued construction of his surveillance state. The
question is why did Obama not use this board rather than call for a new one?
Most
likely Obama's May 23d comment referred to a second "Privacy and Civil
Liberties Oversight Board" that Congress established in 2004 for the same
purpose as Bush's Board, so Congress could also buy some cover. Obama virtually
named this second Board in his NDU speech. In his August 9 presentation Obama
again expressly mentioned asking this Board "to review where our
counterterrorism efforts and our values come into tension." In his May 23d
NDU speech Obama mentioned this very same assignment in those same words when
he referred to it by its official name, reinforcing the evidence that the
earlier reference was also to this same existing board.
Obama
refers to wanting a group of "outside" experts. The ex officio board
may not have satisfied that criterion, though it satisfied all his other
criteria. Under current law this PCLO Board is already "established as an
independent agency within the executive branch." The Board is comprised of
experts who, unlike the ex officio Board, are required by law to not be
government officials. They also have broad legal powers to do the same task
that Obama wants to "form" a new such Board to do. Indeed, the PCLO
Board should already be doing what Obama claims he "asked" it to do.
The law requires that the "Board shall--(1) analyze and review actions the
executive branch takes to protect the Nation from terrorism, ensuring that the
need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil
liberties; and
(2)
ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development
and implementation of laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to
protect the Nation against terrorism." See Public Law 110--53 ,
Aug. 3, 2007, Secs. 801-803.
Thus,
what Obama claims as his own new proactive initiative for "review"
was already commanded by Congress nearly a decade ago as an institutional
process.
Of
course, the existence of this second "Board," with all Obama
appointees , has had no discernible deterrent effect on Obama's
constitutional violations, any more than it had under Bush. So even though he
has already appointed exactly the same kind of Board that he suggests he is now
newly "forming," this "independent Board" fig leaf/ rubber
stamp combination is such a tried and true propaganda tool that Obama returns
to drink from this same well of deception from which others drank before him.
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