Charlie Savage of the NY Times writes:
A leading Democrat in Congress is pushing back against an effort to impose new constraints on a civil liberties watchdog agency that investigates the nation’s security programs.
The agency, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, is a bipartisan five-member panel that Congress created after a recommendation by the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Its members and staff have security clearances and a mandate to investigate government practices that affect individual rights.
The Senate and House intelligence committees have increasingly sought to impose new rules on the board’s work, including a series of proposals in a pending intelligence authorization bill. But in a letter this week to Senate Intelligence Committee leaders, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, demanded that the proposals be withdrawn.
Read more on AllGov.
h/t, Joe Cadillic