By Anthony Gregory
In the Bush era, civil liberties were all the rage. The Democrats pushed back, if only very slightly, against Bush’s powergrabs on surveillance and detention policy. In 2004 a “Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board” was created to help oversee the threats of the war on terror against our constitutional rights. Although this was a hollow shell of real oversight, just another government trick to make us think that “checks and balances” were keeping our freedoms secure, it’s all the more hollow now: Under Obama, the entire board has been vacant this whole time. Thanks to Tom Mullen for the link.