Oversight board briefed on NSA program

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans' privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government's electronic eavesdropping program.

WASHINGTON - After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans' privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government's electronic eavesdropping program.

Members say they were impressed by the protections.

The briefing for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had been delayed because President Bush was concerned — after several press leaks — about widening the circle of people who knew the exact details of the secret eavesdropping program.

The board, created by Congress but appointed by Bush, focused on other classified work since it was named in spring 2005 but it continued to press for a formal briefing by the National Security Agency.

A breakthrough was reached in recent days and the five members were briefed by senior officials during Thanksgiving week.

Board members told The Associated Press they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA's monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions and wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust.

"If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we'd be more reassured," said Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board's lone liberal Democrat.

Davis said he believes the administration could tell the public more about the program's protections without compromising national security.

Alan Raul, a former Reagan White House lawyer and the board's vice chairman, said he too was impressed.

"We found there was a great appreciation inside government, both at the political and career levels, for protections on privacy and civil liberties," said Raul, author of a book of privacy and civil liberties. "In fact, I think the public may have an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections."

The board members are prohibited from discussing any specific protections or tactics because the NSA program remains classified.

While board members were impressed, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee urged colleagues on Monday not to approve legislation formally legalizing the NSA program until Congress gets more answers.

"The fact is, despite repeated assurances from the administration, members of Congress remain in the dark and cannot answer fundamental questions about the program's scope, effectiveness or legal justification," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "As one of the few members who have received the most detailed information to date, I can say that the administration has not been able to document convincingly the benefits of the program."

The board was created as a compromise between Congress and the White House amid growing public and congressional concerns about the government's tactics in the war on terror and their impact on civil rights.

Those concerns were fueled in part by news leaks that divulged the existence of the NSA's eavesdropping program, a similar terrorist finance tracking system and secret CIA prisons where high value targets have been interrogated.

Democrats, who are about to take over Congress in January, have been concerned the board doesn't have enough independence because the political compromise struck in late 2004 left the board under the authority of the president.

Some have discussed elevating the board to an independent body like the Sept. 11 review commission. Board members were meeting Monday at the White House with two dozen congressional staffers to discuss those concerns and options.

After meeting in private 16 times over the last year to discuss classified matters and to be briefed by every major U.S. intelligence agency, the board has scheduled its first public hearing Dec. 5 to solicit testimony from nongovernment privacy experts.

The forum, to be held at Georgetown University, will hear from some of the administration's privacy critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, as well as conservative and academic voices.