A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White

With laws under consideration or recently passed that allow wiretapping, spies, and domestic satellite usage, there's plenty of work for the newly created U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to do. Unfortunately, it's not able to do anything at all.

In an article Tuesday, Newsweek reported [1] an impasse that may keep the five-member panel from operating, or even meeting, before the next president takes office. Only one of two members recommended by Congress will actually be nominated.

Director for the Open Society Policy Center, Morton Halperin's nomination was rejected without comment by President George W. Bush. In return, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said the Senate will block Bush's three nominees.

Halperin has been a strong defender of civil rights for decades. He even qualifies on a personal level: he was number eight on President Nixon's enemies list and had his phone tapped by that administration while working in the White House and afterwards.

Still, he said the Bush Administration's wiretapping policy "constitutes a far greater threat than the lawlessness of Richard Nixon."

So perhaps it is not surprising the Bush Administration refused the recommendation. However, Halperin wrote in a New York Times op-ed [2] that he supports the newly-passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), though he wrote that "this legislation isn't perfect."

In a speech [3] from the Rose Garden Wednesday, Bush praised the passage of the bill by the Senate and indicated he was eager to sign it into law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who originally recommended Halperin , is now looking for alternative appointees to put forward. Pelosi's spokesman Brendan Daly told Newsweek the Congresswoman's intent in recommending Halperin was not partisan:

"The reason wasn't to put a finger in Bush's eye. The reason was he's strong on civil liberties."

This kind of foot dragging seems to be par for the civil liberties course recently. Complaints [4] have been circulating for years regarding executive inaction for both this civil rights watchdog group and others from the recent past.

The new board, mandated by Congress since 2004, is an attempt to make civil rights enforcement a higher priority than it has been in the past few years. The former U.S. Civil Rights Commission was roundly criticized as a "rubber stamp" agency and disbanded in February. In recent years, the commission had one of the smallest budgets of any government agency, had no enforcement power and was often embroiled [5] in political fights over presidential appointees (who did not require Congressional approval as they do now).

The new board was first recommended [6] by the 9/11 Commission. The board was formally established in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Last year, Congress changed [7] the membership make-up to allow no more than three appointees per political party, in an attempt to make the board less partisan. However, it seems those changes also made the board less palatable to the Bush Administration. When the current commission members' terms expired in January, Bush failed to nominate anyone new. The White House's Web page still describes [8] the board as comprised of "five members appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the president" despite the changes.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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