"This board failed miserably in its mission of helping to protect Americans' privacy and instead acted mainly to help the White House whitewash programs like warrantless NSA wiretapping that violate Americans' civil liberties," Graves said. "Now that Congress has changed the board's rules to make it a little more independent, the White House appears to have no interest in appointing anyone to it."

Last summer, Lanny Davis, the sole Democrat that has been appointed to the board resigned in protest after the Bush administration "made more than 200 revisions" to the panel's first report to Congress:

The balance between needing to protect ourselves from terrorists and preserving privacy, civil liberties and human rights of U.S. and non-U.S. persons alike is a very difficult one. But striking the right balance is not and should not be impossible.

My conclusion after a year of meeting our government's senior officials in executive departments and intelligence agencies responsible for executing the war on terrorism and who are trying to implement anti-terrorist programs that strike the appropriate balance has been uniformly positive.

These are to a person impressive and conscientious people who care very much about privacy rights and civil liberties -- not just for the rest of us but for themselves and their own families. I honor their work and their effort to walk the delicate line. They make misjudgments and mistakes. But I met no one who was not concerned about drawing the right line somewhere that still respected and honored the nation's core constitutional values.

If anything, there were times, including when the Board was "read into" and given complete access to the operation of the Terrorist Surveillance Program that I wondered whether the individuals doing this difficult job on behalf of all of us were not being too careful, too concerned, about going over the privacy and liberties lines -- so concerned, with so many internal checks and balances, that they could miss catching or preventing the bad guys from another attack. And I remember walking out of these briefing sessions in some dark and super-secret agency with the thought: I wish the American people could meet these people and observe what they are doing. They would feel much better, including those who consider themselves to be most "liberal" in their ideology and most concerned, in the ACLU-perspective, about compromises to basic civil liberties and privacy rights, even during an effort to protect us all from terrorists.

I just wish the culture of this administration was more bent towards transparency and getting the story out -- without, of course, compromising national security or classified sources or methods that would allow the bad guys to figure out a way around our programs. It's a good story, with good people to tell it. And the American people would be reassured if they were able to see these people in person and hear how concerned they are about striking the right balance. (Why I Resigned From the President's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board -- And Where We Go From Here, by Lanny Davis)

Please read Lucy Belnora's recent post at Everyday Citizen, Take Action: Let Your Voice For Freedom Be Heard.

Lucy makes a reasonable request of all of us that we not take our eye off the ball this week, even though this is caucus week. Our privacies and our protections are being discussed and will be voted on in the U.S. Senate this week. It is so important that we not only participate in presidential caucuses but we also participate in all of the debates in the Senate.

Call your senator and let him or her know where you stand on warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of Americans, then, insist that the Privacy Board also be populated.