Trump Moves to Empower the Deep State by Hobbling Mass Surveillance Watchdog

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump made numerous effusive promises to wage a war on the “deep state” as soon as he returned to the White House. By one count, Trump had promised to “destroy the deep state” a total of 56 times, as of last summer. Now that Trump is back in power, however, there is quite limited evidence that he’s going to follow through on any of those promises. In fact, one of the first things that Trump has done is to attack a privacy and civil liberties watchdog which is one of the only government entities devoted to checking the power of America’s terrifying spy agencies.

The New York Times reports that Trump has sought to “paralyze” the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (or PCLOB)—an independent agency operated out of the Executive Branch that was set up in 2004 in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. PCLOB is bipartisan and armed with subpoena power. Its ostensible aim is to “ensure that the federal government’s efforts to prevent terrorism are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties.”

PCLOB has five seats. One of those seats is currently vacant, one is occupied by a Republican-picked board member, and board members selected by Democrats occupy the other three seats. The Times now reports that Trump’s deputy director of presidential personnel, Trent Morse, sent emails to each of the three Democrat-selected board members, compelling them to submit resignation letters by the close of day on Jan. 23, or risk having their positions terminated. The Republican member was not asked to leave. The newspaper notes that the “departure of the three Democratic-picked members would mean the agency would lack enough members to function as the Trump administration begins its efforts to reshape the nation’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”

PCLOB, while better than nothing, has frequently been called a “sleeping watchdog” and has been criticized for doing too little too late. In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, PCLOB authored a report on the NSA’s domestic spying program, coming to the conclusion that the legal statute upon which it rested did “not provide an adequate basis to support this program.” However, PCLOB only came to this conclusion after news of the agency’s rampant spying was leaked to the public by a whistleblower.

In 2021, PCLOB delivered a classified report that revealed a mass surveillance program being carried out domestically by the CIA. The CIA is technically barred from activity within the U.S., making it somewhat unclear how the agency could legally carry out the surveillance program, which was dubbed “Deep Dive.” Due to its classification, the report could only be shared with senators and not the public. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) subsequently spoke out about the program, bringing it to the public’s attention. Little has been revealed about “Deep Dive” since that time.

There are very few guardrails when it comes to America’s intelligence agencies and now Trump is trying to dispense with one of them. America’s oversight committees have similarly been criticized for being little more than deaf, dumb, and blind handmaidens to the agencies they are tasked with overseeing. The oversight committees were originally set up during the 1970s after scandals involving significant criminal activity on the part of the intelligence agencies forced Congress to enact change.