Intelligence Gathering

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/opinion/intelligence-gathering.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Reauthorize Foreign Surveillance,” by Thomas P. Bossert (Op-Ed, June 7):

In calling on Congress to extend permanently the warrantless collection provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Mr. Bossert, the president’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, cites the oversight mechanisms intended to keep the program within bounds.

Among those, he says, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board “deserves special praise.” The problem is that the board is crippled, with only one serving member.

Congress chartered the board as a five-member body. By law, it can act only with a quorum of three. At a time of heightened concern about terrorism worldwide and abiding worries about privacy in the digital age, the institution created after 9/11 to balance security and constitutional liberties in the country’s counterterrorism programs lies dormant.

If President Trump is serious about seeking renewal of the extraordinary powers granted under the surveillance law, he should promptly nominate a bipartisan slate of privacy experts to the oversight board.

JAMES X. DEMPSEYBERKELEY, CALIF.

The writer, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, served as a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2012 to last January.