Thirty civil liberties groups on Monday presented President Obama with a laundry list of recommendations they want him to make before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a last-ditch attempt to prevent the president from passing down certain policies that risk being preserved indefinitely.
“On your first day in office, you embraced the goals of ensuring the public’s trust and strengthening our democracy in a memorandum on transparency and open government,” begins the letter sent Monday to Mr. Obama on behalf of groups including Demand Progress, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Government Accountability Project.
“As your administration winds down and our democracy faces strong headwinds, we urge you to take the following important steps to empower citizens, Congress and the courts to protect our system of separated powers and make sure that our government continues working as the founders intended,” the groups continue.
The letter lists 11 separate items the groups wish to see Mr. Obama tackle before his administration comes to a close, ranging from reforming surveillance law to declassifying information about the secret detention facilities run by the CIA after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Daniel Schuman, a policy director for Demand Progress, indicated Mr. Obama only has a matter of weeks to act before his predecessor inherits certain government tools, tactics and secrets that civil liberties advocates have vigorously fought during Mr. Obama’s tenure in office.
“President Obama must do everything in his power to arm Americans and Congress to push back on an already over-powerful surveillance state that will be let loose on the American people under President-elect Trump,” Mr. Schuman said in a statement. “We can expect the next administration to take an unfettered approach that includes mass surveillance, torture and racial and religiously-based persecution, and information about the current extent of the surveillance state will strengthen our collective ability to push back against abuses of power and constitutional violations.”
The letter specifically calls on Mr. Obama to declassify and release the secret legal opinions rendered by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the body that approves the government’s eavesdropping requests, and direct a government-wide review to determine whether the data collected by U.S. intelligence gatherers on American citizens is being appropriately retained and disposed of.
The letter also calls on the president to release the names of the CIA’s post-9/11 “black sites” and the identities of its detainees, as well as to take certain steps to enable the release of additional details about the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s largely classified report on the CIA’s use or torture at those facilities.
Additionally, the letter asks the president to reveal how many American citizens have had their personal communications collected by the U.S. intelligence community as a result of existing surveillance law, and to disclose details about past inspector general reports concerning the government’s various programs.
“We welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you further,” the letter concludes. “No less than our shared legacy of a vibrant democratic government is at stake.”
Civil rights groups have raised concerns in the wake of Mr. Trump’s election given his calls for new security measures intended to prevent Islamic radicals from entering the United States. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union blasted Mr. Trump for naming Rep. Mike Pompeo, Kentucky Republican, as the nation’s next CIA director and accused the appointee for holding beliefs that raise “serious civil liberties concerns about privacy and due process.”
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