President weakens espionage oversight
Board created by Ford loses most of its power
By Charlie Savage
Globe Staff / March 14, 2008
WASHINGTON - Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities,
President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority..........
Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity that it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But
Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem.Bush's order also terminated the board's authority to oversee each intelligence agency's general counsel and inspector general, and it erased a requirement that each inspector general file a report with the board every three months.
Now only the agency directors will decide whether to report any potential lawbreaking to the panel, and they have no schedule for checking in..............
Finally, executive orders were once widely understood to be binding unless a president revoked them, an act that would notify Congress that the rules had changed. But the administration has decided that
Bush is free to secretly authorize spies to ignore executive orders - including one that restricts surveillance on US citizens traveling overseas - without rescinding them.more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/03/14/president_weakens_espionage_oversight/
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