Watching Big Brother: Privacy Board Delayed

The Obama Administration waited three years, until last December, to nominate a full slate of members to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The nominees are now awaiting Senate confirmation, but there are ominous signs that Senate Republicans will block them, even though the nominees come from both parties.

Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican member of Congress who served on the first incarnation of the board, says he hopes that won't happen. "Well, it shouldn't be a partisan issue at all. It's a balanced board that's being created, and it's just important for them to start the work after a five-year delay," Hutchinson says. If the board had been operational in those years, could it have calmed some of the worries about government surveillance? It's hard to say, but Franklin, of the Constitution Project, says a functioning board might calm current privacy controversies — like the one over the cybersecurity bill. "If it can review classified information that the public is not privy to and assure us that that kind of oversight is going on, that would certainly give me greater confidence, absolutely," she says. To this, Hutchinson adds that the failure to staff the civil liberties board represents "an extraordinary disappointment in government."