Norway Decides Privacy Is More Important Than Protecting The Entertainment Industry's Business Model

Why Isn't The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board Staffed?

from the questions,-questions dept

Wed, Jun 24th 2009 8:22pm — Mike Masnick

Certainly one of the biggest questions concerning both the last president and the current one has been the general disregard for certain civil liberties -- especially on issues like domestic spying and warrantless wiretapping. Barry Steinhardt, over at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, reminds us that the government is supposed to have a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, but it doesn't. This board was created by Congress a few years back after widespread abuses of civil liberties and privacy due to The Patriot Act were discovered. But, rather than do anything about it, President Bush ignored it until the very end of his term, and didn't even fully nominate the members. Meanwhile, President Obama has done absolutely nothing with the board. To be fair, he's been busy with lots of other stuff, but this is certainly an important issue, and it's a shame that it's been ignored. Unfortunately, it seems to indicate what those in the ultimate seat of power think about everyone's civil liberties and privacy.

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Filed Under: administration, civil liberties, privacy

10 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2009 @ 9:16pm

"To be fair, he's been busy with lots of other stuff"

You mean like secret agreements with industry lobbyists on intellectual property.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090614/1819325224.shtml
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2009 @ 9:34pm

Because it's not a priority...??!?

DUUUUUUH!

Hey, why not send out Biden to meet with Hollywood a few more times? I hear he sucks good dick. nom nom nom...
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dhanie, 25 Jun 2009 @ 1:35am

obama will fix this
hi guys,

if i were obama, i would be very busy like him! im not saying that obama dont mind about unlawful activity such as wiretapping or spying, but he has alot to prove to the world, he has so many things to be fixed.

maybe he's just like everyone else, and that is unaware of how often spying activities happens and how dangerous it is.

so on my opinion, let's give him some slack, have a little faith with the man...he'll take care of that later on, i hope so..well we all do hope so, right?!

cheers
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Gee, 25 Jun 2009 @ 4:25am

obama voted to continue the patriot act, silly
that is, he voted (as a senator, just before the election) to continue the amended patriot act which also provides telecom immunity from helping the gov spy on us - so, folks, this is a trend - his vote on Patriot Act is why I didnt vote for him - I had to sit the past election out. He lost me at hello on privacy and civil liberties issues
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Xpo, 25 Jun 2009 @ 5:00am

"after widespread abuses of civil liberties and privacy due to The Patriot Act "

I'm sorry, can you give specific examples of this "problem". I don't believe that there has been widespread abuses of the patriot act. Every chicken little was afraid that there would be, but I don't think any agency has logged that many cases of abuse of the Patriot act. Even the ACLU website only lists 2 specific cases and those occured after 2004, when this Oversight Board was created by Congress.
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Stingwolf, 25 Jun 2009 @ 5:38am

Re:
"I don't believe that there has been widespread abuses of the patriot act."

HAHAHAHA!

"I don't think any agency has logged that many cases of abuse of the Patriot act."

That's because, up until very recently, you weren't allowed to talk about them. No joke. Look up national security letters. Also, I'm not fooled by the constitutionality ruling on the gag order. I'm certain there are "negotiations" made about disclosing the receipt of an NSL.

Why anyone, such as yourself, still trusts the government with this kind of power is beyond me.
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Luci, 25 Jun 2009 @ 5:45am

Re:
Here's a fun little thing you could try. Go to Google, enter '"patriot act" abuses' into the search, and hit enter.

Or how about this news article (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/06/judge_orders_fb/) which shows the FBI having abused the Patriot Act not just a couple of times, but thousands of times?

Just have to open your eyes and look around. It's out there.
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hegemon13, 25 Jun 2009 @ 7:14am

Re: obama will fix this
The president does not get "slack," especially when he is "busy" breaking his most important campaign promises. If the president is unaware of how often spying activities are happening, he is far too ignorant and neglectful to be president.
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Sean T Henry (profile), 25 Jun 2009 @ 7:32am

Re: obama will fix this
With so much to do it would be best to delegate tasks to relieve some of the work. Although selecting a group that will have the American People's best interest in mind is hard to do especially when involved in politics.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 25 Jun 2009 @ 9:06am

Oh come on
Really, guys, do you honestly think the government out there is SPYING on people? Let's be serious. They have much more important things to do than {content deleted by Echelon} or {content deleted by Echelon}.

I mean, do you really think Obama is meeting with {content deleted by Echelon}?

Get real!
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