A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two controversial surveillance programs proposed by the administration of President George W. Bush -- electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking -- which the board says do not violate citizens' civil liberties.
After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is preparing to release its first report to Congress next week.
The report finds that both the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program and the Treasury Department's monitoring of international banking transactions have sufficient privacy protections, three board members said in telephone interviews.
Both programs have multiple layers of review before sensitive information is accessed, they said.
There have been complaints about the board's potential lack of independence. It has no subpoena power and the White House has the final say on its annual reports before they go to Congress. The members serve at the pleasure of Bush, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has the final say over whether officials must comply with the board's recommendations.
"We looked at the program, we visited NSA and met with the top people all the way down to those doing the hands-on work," said Carol Dinkins, a Houston lawyer and former Reagan administration assistant attorney general, who chairs the board.
"The program is structured and implemented in a way that is properly protective and attentive to civil liberties," she said.
Some board members were troubled by the Homeland Security Department's error-ridden no-fly lists, which critics say use subjective or inconclusive data to flag suspect travelers.
One area the board will focus on in its report is the computerized anti-terrorism screening system recently announced by Homeland Security and used for years without travelers' knowledge to assign risk assessments to millions of US citizens who fly abroad.
"That's a place where there's a lot of opportunity for improve-ment," Dinkins said.
Lanny Davis, a counsel to former president Bill Clinton and the lone Democrat on the panel, described the board's first report to Congress as modest.
He said most of the work in the past year was spent being briefed on the administration's surveillance programs.
"We felt reassured by the checks and balance concerns," Davis said.
He said that after several classified briefings, members were impressed by the multiple layers of review, which included audit trails to track whoever had access to the data.
Still, Davis said he anticipated the board would continue to monitor the program as needed.
"It would be a mistake if that was the end of the review," he said.
The board's initial findings come as Congress moves forward on measures to give the board more authority and make it more independent of the president.
Created in late 2004, the panel was established as a compromise between Congress and the White House after a recommendation by the independent commission that looked into government activities before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
Both conservative and liberal civil liberties groups have urged the members to review the eavesdropping program aggressively and have questioned whether board members would stand up to the president even if he were flouting the law.
In recent weeks, the administration has agreed to let a secret but independent panel of judges oversee the program.
Many lawmakers and civil libertarians remain skeptical of its legality, and the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating whether the agency used any of the information improperly.
Separate Senate and House of Representatives measures would also require that the entire board, not just the chairman and vice chairman as now, be confirmed by the Senate.
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