Obama reestablishes critical intelligence oversight board (finally!)

Exec. Order 13516

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On June 19, I alerted intelNews readers to the fact that US President Barack Obama had yet to appoint any members to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB). First established in 1956 by President Eisenhower, the PIAB, is a critical oversight group tasked with alerting the White House about US intelligence activities that may be illegal or may in any way go beyond Presidential authorization. Now, after months of inexcusable delays, not only has US President Barack Obama restored PIAB, but has also restored its original oversight role, which had been curtailed by the Bush administration since 2008. Specifically, on October 28, the President appointed former Senators David Boren and Chuck Hagel as co-chairs of PIAB, a move that effectively ended the Board’s hiatus. Later on the same day, Obama’s Executive Order 13516 re-authorized the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) a sub-committee of PIAB, to notify the US Attorney General and the White House about potentially unauthorized or otherwise unlawful activities by US intelligence agencies. The IOB’s effective dissolution during the final year of the Bush administration was the first time in over 50 years that its monitoring powers had been curtailed. Writing on the Secrecy News blog of the Federation of American Scientists, Steven Aftergood described Obama’s decision as “a move that will strengthen internal executive branch oversight of intelligence”.