IN THE world of cloak and dagger, it is hard to know just how often the Intelligence Oversight Board stepped in to blow the whistle on some renegade activity by a spy agency. Made up of national security veterans, the board is intended to provide independent scrutiny. It may not have been fulfilling its role recently, since the Bush administration has admitted the use of waterboarding and warrantless tapping of Americans' phones and e-mails. But late last month, President Bush largely defanged even this panel.
The oversight board was created in the mid-1970s, when Congress was up in arms over domestic spying, assassination attempts, and other abuses by US intelligence agencies. To head off stricter regulation, the Ford administration set up the board as its own executive branch watchdog. And it has had some influence; in 1996 the board did fault the Central Intelligence Agency for not adequately informing Congress that it was hiring torturers and killers in Guatemala.
But any semblance of effective oversight ended Feb. 29, with a Bush executive order stripping the board of authority to notify the Justice Department when it came upon an activity that might be illegal. According to White House spokesman Tony Fratto, the changes were necessary because the creation of the position of director of national intelligence in 2004 created overlapping responsibilities.
But there is no getting around the fact that the changes weaken the board. Since under its old rules it has clearly not impeded the activities of this administration, the effect of Bush's order can only be to institutionalize the dismantling of post-Watergate restraints on presidential power - restraints that officials like Vice President Cheney have long resented. A new president, from either party, should restore the authority the board had before the Bush-Cheney wrecking ball hit it.
