Obama Panel Controls Information to Public About NSA Spy Programs

The Truth Behind The News

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
September 24, 2013

President Obama created a panel of advisers that were supposed to be “independent experts” who could lend expertise to National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs such as PRISM to ensure that “civil liberties” were not being infringed, while instilling trust in the government into the American social consciousness.

However, far from being unbiased, the panel is comprised of employees of the loan offices at National Intelligence (NI).

To control information flow, interview requests and press releases are monitored and reviewed by the panel called the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (RGICT).

The RGICT will be submitting a report to Obama that will then be made public – only after it is reviewed by the president.

Private meetings have been held with tech giants and private interest groups hiding in plain sight; despite not having classified information to protect.

The NSA PRISM program and other surveillance operations were mentioned at recent meetings which prompted the necessity for “separate classified meetings” to be scheduled for the near future with tech executives in attendance.

Sascha Meinrath, attendee of the meetings and director of the Open technology Institute (OTI) and vice president of the New America Foundation (NAF) explained that the purpose of these meetings is to “leave the public out of the loop.”

Meinrath said: “No one can look at this group and say it’s completely independent.”

Members of the RGICT include:

• Peter Swire, former Office of Management and Budget privacy director under President Bill Clinton
• Michael Morell, Obama’s former deputy CIA director
• Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism coordinator under Clinton and later for President George W. Bush
• Cass Sunstein, Obama’s former regulatory czar
• Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago, leads a university committee looking to build Obama’s presidential library in Chicago and was an informal adviser to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign

In 2004, under the George W. Bush administration, Congress created the Privacy and Civil Liberties oversight Board (PCLOB) as an independent agency within the executive branch of our government.

The PCLOB was sold to the public as a necessary group that would “analyze and review actions the executive branch takes to protect the nation from terrorism, ensuring that the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties; and to ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of law, regulations and policies related to efforts to protect the nation against terrorism.”

Through controlled oversight and advice, the PCLOB have influence over proposed legislation, regulations and policies with direct access to the President and Congress when issues of terrorism and information sharing are foremost.

The PCLOB was recommended by the 9/11 Commission Report to initially be created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA).

Obama designated James Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology and Elisebeth Collins Cook, former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice (DoJ) in Chicago.

In 2011, Obama announced that the PCLOB would be briefed on cybersecurity policies and measures as well as nominating more members to the panel.

The PCLOB would benefit from the passage of HR 3523, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA) by becoming the review board for privacy and protection of civil liberties while maintaining an information sharing program.

Last July, the PCLOB discussed the impact of Edward Snowden on the NSA PRISM program.

The post Obama Panel Controls Information to Public About NSA Spy Programs appeared first on Susanne Posel.

Source: http://www.occupycorporatism.com/obama-panel-controls-information-to-public-about-nsa-spy-programs/