Trump Is Trying To Fire Most of the White House’s Civil Liberties Watchdog
President Donald Trump is reportedly seeking to ax most of the members of an internal watchdog agency that flags potential privacy violations by federal surveillance programs—including the government’s warrantless electronic communication spying scheme.
Three members of the five-person Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board received letters this week telling them to resign or prepare to be fired by Thursday, The New York Times reports. Democratic presidents appointed the three individuals targeted for termination, and their departure would mean the board does not have a sufficient quorum to operate.
The lone Republican-appointed member of the board has not been asked to resign, the Times notes. The fifth seat on the board is currently vacant.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) was created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks but was hobbled by a lack of a quorum and other procedural issues during much of the Bush administration and into the early years of the Obama administration. Despite that, the board produced in 2014 the first comprehensive review of the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program—a report that confirmed much of what Edward Snowden revealed to the public a year earlier.
Since then, the board has continued to advocate for greater transparency and accountability in
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