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Aiming at CIA, NSA misdeeds, free speech group sues for oversight records
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is set to file a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit today in Federal court to obtain information from the Intelligence Oversight Board, with the goal of obtaining documentary evidence of intelligence agency misdeeds, reports wired.com’s Threat Level blog.
The Intelligence Oversight Board is a little-known, nonpartisan panel of citizens who advise the president on intelligence issues. One of IOB’s responsibilities is to look into intelligence agencies’ internal reports of ethics and law violations, and if warranted, recommend serious cases for further presidential action.
EFF hopes to tap into CIA, NSA, and other agencies’ records of self-reporting on potential wrongdoing to learn more about how US collects intelligence on US citizens, for example, or homicides or other crimes that may have occurred during detainee interrogations or detentions. EFF’s earlier FOIA requests to US intelligence agencies for information on these topics have yielded little, Threat Level reports.
One by-product of the EFF suit is likely to be exposure of IOB’s lackadaisical oversight of day-to-day intelligence activities.
Another by-product will be indications that CIA, NSA, and other intelligence agencies don’t take oversight seriously.
Former President Bush effectively defanged the IOB in 2008 with an executive order that took away the board’s ability to refer criminal cases directly to the Department of Justice, as well as removing requirements that intelligence agencies’ General Counsels and Inspectors General submit regular, periodic reports to the IOB.
President Obama, for his part, has effectively ignored the IOB. He has not restored its former powers and reporting responsibilities, and the Federation of American Scientists Secrecy News noted in June that the board is vacant because Obama has yet to appoint new members.
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