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Obama’s NSA review board proving the cynics right

Sam Sacks

Sam Sacks is a political commentator and journalist, the last five years spent covering politics in Washington, DC. He worked as a staffer for a member of the US House of Representatives during the 111th Congress, advising on issues ranging from election reform to government oversight to ethics investigations. Upon leaving Capitol Hill before the 2010 elections, he went to work as a senior producer for RT’s The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann. He was a routine guest on the show, and often filled in as host. He also produced RT’s live Third Party Debate between Dr. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in November of 2012. And he co-anchored RT’s live election night coverage. Sam has appeared as a guest for RT News and other international networks. He's also contributed to numerous online and print outlets including RT.com, Truthout.org, Alternet.org, and Hustler magazine. Currently, he’s the founder and editor of The DC Sentinel at DCSentinel.com. 

Sam Sacks is a political commentator and journalist, the last five years spent covering politics in Washington, DC. He worked as a staffer for a member of the US House of Representatives during the 111th Congress, advising on issues ranging from election reform to government oversight to ethics investigations. Upon leaving Capitol Hill before the 2010 elections, he went to work as a senior producer for RT’s The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann. He was a routine guest on the show, and often filled in as host. He also produced RT’s live Third Party Debate between Dr. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in November of 2012. And he co-anchored RT’s live election night coverage. Sam has appeared as a guest for RT News and other international networks. He's also contributed to numerous online and print outlets including RT.com, Truthout.org, Alternet.org, and Hustler magazine. Currently, he’s the founder and editor of The DC Sentinel at DCSentinel.com. 

@SamSacks
Obama’s NSA review board proving the cynics right
AFP Photo / Paul J. Richards © AFP

When the US Congress wants to pretend to solve a problem, they create a “Gang of Six” or a “Gang of Eight.” When the White House wants to pretend to solve a problem, they create a panel – or some sort of independent review board.

Case in point, the White House’s recent problems with the NSA. At a press conference earlier this month, President Obama promised to form “a high-level group of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies.”

He said this group will “consider how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse in terms of how these surveillance technologies are used, ask how surveillance impacts our foreign policy.”

This panel of “outside experts” would draft a report by the end of the year for “better understanding of how these programs impact our security, our privacy, and our foreign policy.”

Of course, the more cynical among us (myself included) immediately dismissed this idea of an NSA review board knowing full well that review boards are DC speak for “kick the can down the road.”

And now that we know who’s sitting on this review board of “outside experts,” our cynicisms are well-founded.

The first two outsiders are national security insider Richard Clarke and CIA insider Michael Morell.

Richard Clarke (AFP Photo / Alex Wong)

Clark served on the National Security Council for President Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 – he was basically the counter-terror czar for the White House. Michael Morell spent 33 years working at the Central Intelligence Agency. He briefed Bush on 9/11. He was alongside Obama when Bin Laden was killed. And most recently, he was the former Director of the CIA, stepping down just in March of this year. So he’s been an outsider all of…five months.

Certainly these guys have a breadth of knowledge and experience. But clearly, they’ve spent their careers focused on protecting the United States from a terrorist attack, not keeping the ACLU content by protecting civil liberties. Heck, these guys have probably taken advantage of these very same programs they’re now tasked with reviewing.

So, half the panel has little background in the flip-side of the security coin – the privacy side. Which makes little sense considering that concerns over privacy – and other civil liberties including the First Amendment’s right to free association – are what started this debate over the NSA to begin with.

And the next “outside expert” on the panel is former White House insider Cass Sunstein. He was basically the information and regulatory czar – in charge of reviewing federal regulations and, according to WhiteHouse.gov, overseeing federal policies related to privacy and information quality.

Mr. Sunstein might be a good fit on this panel…except for this: a paper he co-authored in 2010 titled