Nothing
to see here

Two-and-a-half decades ago, the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board was established to allow civilian Americans oversight of possible sleazy manoeuverings by the intelligence community. Since then, every sitting president has staffed the board and reports have been filed. And then came Bush. For the first two years of his first term, the President didn’t bother appointing anyone to the IOB at all. After he did, they apparently didn’t see anything worth reporting.

The FBI says they filed hundreds of possible incidences of G-man legal and civil rights violations to the board, whose purpose was to review and report any violations to the Justice Department. Responding to a 2006 query from the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department claimed no reports from the IOB had come their way.

According to White House spokestoad Dana Perino, the IOB is redundant in the revamped intelligence framework. Perino says the President prefers to rely on the sound judgment of his appointed intelligence directors and “expects every single person working in counterterrorism and intelligence strictly to follow the law.”

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) calls it another example of the administration’s contempt for being held accountable.

by Scott Saxon