Trump axes Democrats on intelligence and privacy oversight board

The members on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board — Sharon Bradford Franklin, Edward Felten and Travis LeBlanc — were asked Tuesday night to resign by Thursday or be terminated, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The New York Times first reported news of the request.

Trump has vowed to overhaul the government by dismissing those who are disloyal to his political agenda or were associated with the Biden administration, using arguments that he and his allies have been unfairly targeted or censored by certain federal officials or agencies.

PLCOB members are granted six-year terms upon confirmation to the executive branch panel, although the law allows them to stay for up to a year after their terms expire. Two of the members, Felten and Franklin, had terms expiring next week. LeBlanc was set to remain on the board until 2028.

The board at a full slate normally has five members, but only four have been there up until this point. The lone Republican on the board, Beth Williams, was not asked to leave, the person familiar said. The departures would severely kneecap the board because of a three-member quorum required to conduct oversight business.

The move comes as Congress is slated next year to debate reauthorizing a contested surveillance power that allows the intelligence community and law enforcement to collect communications of foreign targets abroad without a warrant.

The ordinance — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — permits analysts to collect foreign targets’ conversations with U.S. persons, which has raised concerns that the law provides an end-run around the Fourth Amendment. It was extended in a law signed by former President Joe Biden in April.

Just Tuesday, a federal court in New York ruled that the FBI’s collections that used the spying power had violated the Fourth Amendment.

Privacy hawks seeking to reform the statute have often cited cases where the authority was found to have been abused by law enforcement. The PCLOB has played a major role in surfacing those abuses because its members are allowed to review classified data affiliated with the 702 collection process.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“President Trump’s attempt to expel members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a brazen effort to destroy an independent watchdog that has protected Americans and exposed surveillance abuse under Democratic and Republican administrations alike” said Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology.

“PCLOB was created specifically to provide oversight over the kinds of government actions where the need for secrecy makes people most vulnerable to abuses of power. This is an effort to shoot the watchdog,” she added. “That’s a very bad signal about what this president wants to do next.”