Most notably, the bill removes the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board from the White House -- turning it into an independent agency. Currently the 5-member board serves at the pleasure of the president and only the chair and vice-chair need Senate confirmation. Critics charge that the board has no independence and since it serves inside the White House, can only effectively work as an insider, even though its charged with and attempting to be a public-facing board. These contradictions were glaringly obvious in their first public meeting in December, when it refused to take questions from the press and admitted the panel knew, but would not reveal, the number of Americans targeted yearly by the President's warrantless spying program.
The Democratic Congress's idea of what the panel should look like may well lead to a veto or a court challenge. Each member would serve for a six-year term (meaning they could not be fired), the board would have to report to a bevy of Congressional oversight committees, no more than three members can be from the same political party, and the board can issue its own subpoenas to require people not in the government to turn over records.
Additionally, other agencies, including all intelligence agencies, will have to appoint privacy and civil liberties officers, who themselves will have to report often to Congress and the Privacy and Civil Liberties boards on their activities and investigations. The chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, currently the only privacy officer mandated by Congress, also gets expanded powers to issue outside subpoenas and use the same powers as the Inspector General to force cooperation from Homeland Security employees.
