President during a period of great conflict between security and liberty? Irked by those short-sighted Congress-critters who’ve hobbled you with some sort of independent oversight board to make sure that your agencies aren’t stomping all over all sorts of civil rights?
No worries! Just don’t appoint anyone to the board!
The Bush administration has failed to nominate any candidates to a newly empowered privacy and civil-liberties commission. This leaves the board without any members, even as Congress prepares to give the Bush administration extraordinary powers to wiretap without warrants inside the United States.
[…] In a 2007 measure implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations, Congress reconfigured the oversight committee, known as the Privacy and Civil Liberty Oversight Board. The intent was to make the board more independent of the White House, require it to be bipartisan and make it more accountable to the public.
[…] Terms for the board’s original members expired on Jan. 30, but no nominations have been sent to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which must approve appointees for the five vacancies.
Brilliant! If he plays his card right, he can probably avoid appointing anyone one for — well, for as long as he has to worry about them cramping his style.
(via Les)