Obama’s surveillance board packed with insiders

President Barack Obama pledged he’d appoint “outside experts” to review the country’s surveillance practices, but he’s since tapped largely insiders for the key posts.

The group, formed to examine the policies and procedures at the National Security Agency as it tracks terrorism suspects’ digital communications, is composed mostly of Washington types, many with connections to the very intelligence establishment they’re now tasked with scrutinizing in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks. There’s Michael Morell, a CIA veteran who once led the agency on an interim basis; Richard Clarke, a top counter-terrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations; and Cass Sunstein, a well-known academic who did regulatory work for the Obama White House and is married to United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power. In the absence of technologists on the board, Chris Soghoian, principal technologist and senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said there’s “no way” for the new surveillance review group to address the burgeoning debate over surveillance when it’s composed primarily of lawyers and career Washington types. The board does not include technology executives either, some of whom — like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google engineer Vint Cerf — huddled with Administration officials and the President himself days before President Obama announced the review.

“I think it’s fair to say that by stressing the idea of an independent review board, the appointees don’t live up to what most people view as independent,” said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology. What President Obama was actually seeking, Harris said, was a group to look at the internal management and effectiveness of surveillance programs. She added the board has a “very broad mission, and I’m going to withhold judgment until I see what they do.”