9/11 Commission Recommendations: A Civil Liberties Oversight Board Page: 1 of 5
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Order Code RS.
August 9,
CRS Report for Congress
Received through the CRS Web
9/11 Commission Recommendations: A Civil
Liberties Oversight Board
Harold C. Relyea
Specialist in American National Government
Government and Finance Division
Summary
Among the recommendations made by the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) in its final report is the creation of
a board within the executive branch to oversee adherence to guidelines on, and the
commitment to defend, civil liberties by the federal government. This report examines
this recommendation and its implications, and will be updated as events warrant.
The final report of the 9/11 Commission recommended that "there should be a board
within the executive branch to oversee adherence to the guidelines we recommend and
the commitment the government makes to defend our civil liberties."' This
recommendation is the third and final one made in a section of the report captioned "The
Protection of Civil Liberties." In the other two, the commission recommended that (1)
the President, in the course of determining the guidelines for information sharing among
government agencies and by them with the private sector, "should safeguard the privacy
of individuals about whom information is shared"; and (2) the "burden of proof for
retaining a particular governmental power should be on the executive, to explain (a) that21906
2004the power actually materially enhances security and (b) that there is adequate supervision
of the executive's use of the powers to ensure protection of civil liberties. If the power
is granted," the report added, "there must be adequate guidelines and oversight to properly
confine its use."2 Read together, these recommendations call for a board to oversee
adherence to presidential guidelines on information sharing that safeguard the privacy of
individuals about whom information is shared, and adherence to guidelines on the
executive's continued use of powers that materially enhance security. The report offered
no additional commentary on the composition, structure, or operations of the
recommended board. Such a board, however, had been proposed in December 2003 in
the fifth and final report of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities
'U.S. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission
Report (Washington: GPO, 2004), p. 395.
2 Ibid., pp. 394-395.Congressional Research Service + The Library of Congress
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Relyea, Harold C. 9/11 Commission Recommendations: A Civil Liberties Oversight Board, report, August 9, 2004; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs5755/m1/1/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.