Intelligence Advisory Board

President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) in the United States

The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is one of the White House Advisory Boards established to provide the President with independent information and advice from top experts in their fields. This Advisory Boards was currently active at the end of the Obama Administration.

With its component Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), this Board is an independent element within the Executive Office of the President.

The President’s Intelligence Advisory Board exists exclusively to assist the President by providing the President with an independent source of advice on the effectiveness with which the Intelligence Community is meeting the nation’s intelligence needs, and the vigor and insight with which the community plans for the future. The Board has access to all information needed to perform its functions and has direct access to the President.

The Intelligence Oversight Board oversees the Intelligence Community’s compliance with the Constitution and all applicable laws, Executive Orders, and Presidential Directives. It complements and supplements, rather than duplicates the oversight roles of the Director of National Intelligence, Department and Agency Inspectors General and General Counsels, and the Congressional Oversight Committees.

For more than five decades the PIAB has acted as a nonpartisan body, offering the President objective, expert advice on the conduct of U.S. intelligence.

History

President Eisenhower created the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities in 1956, after concluding that he needed an outside body of highly respected and accomplished Americans to give him unfettered and candid appraisals of US intelligence activities. President Kennedy renamed it the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) in 1961, and it has served every President except for President Carter, who abolished the Board in 1977. President Reagan re-instituted the PFIAB in 1981, and in 2008 President Bush renamed it the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board to reflect the fact that national intelligence doesn’t begin or end at our nation’s borders.

The Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) was created in 1976 by President Ford in response to recommendations made by the Rockefeller Commission calling for a Presidential-level body with specific oversight responsibilities for the legality and propriety of US intelligence activities. In September 1993, President Clinton established the IOB as a standing committee of the PIAB, with the Chairman of the IOB reporting through the Chairman of the PIAB. Prior to that date, the PIAB and IOB were separate White House entities.

Throughout its history, the Board has closely guarded its special status and tradition of non-partisan independence by making every effort to ensure the strict confidentiality of its deliberations and communications, and the unimpeachable objectivity of its advice. Throughout its fifty-plus year history, the PIAB has had immense and long-lasting impact on the structure, management, and operations of US intelligence.

Organization

The Board consists of not more than 16 members appointed by the President from among individuals who are not employed by the Federal Government. Members are distinguished citizens selected from the national security, political, academic, and private sectors. The Board is a nonpartisan body, independent of the Intelligence Community, free from day-to-day management or operational responsibilities, and with full access to the complete range of intelligence-related information.

The President designates a Chair from among the members of the Board who convenes and presides at meetings of the Board, determines its agenda, and directs its work. The President also appoints an Executive Director, who reports to the Chairman and manages the professional staff which is selected and detailed from Intelligence Community agencies.

The Board reports its findings and recommendations on improving the performance of intelligence entities to the President as necessary, but not less than twice each year. On behalf of the President, the Board assesses issues pertaining to the:

  • Quality, quantity, and adequacy of intelligence activities;
  • Effectiveness of organizational structure, management, and personnel; and
  • Performance of all agencies of the Federal Government engaged in the collection, evaluation, or production of intelligence or the execution of intelligence policy.

As a component element of the PIAB, the Intelligence Oversight Board’s (IOB) mission is to oversee the Intelligence Community’s compliance with the Constitution and all applicable laws, Executive Orders, and Presidential Directives. In reviewing the legality and propriety of intelligence activities, the Board advises the President on intelligence activities that the Board believes:

  • May be unlawful or contrary to Executive Order or presidential directive;
  • Are not being adequately addressed by the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, or the head of the department or agency concerned; or
  • Should be immediately brought to his attention.

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