Trump Seeks to Paralyze Independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Watchdog

The Trump White House is moving to paralyze a bipartisan and independent watchdog agency that investigates national security activities that can intrude upon individual rights.

The move comes as the new administration is vowing to put its own stamp on federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It also comes ahead of a new conflict over whether or how Congress should renew a warrantless surveillance law that is set to expire in 2026.

Congress established the agency, called the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, as an independent unit in the executive branch after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It has security clearances and subpoena power, and is set up to have five members, appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, who serve six-year terms. Some members are picked by the president, and some are selected by congressional leaders of the other party.

It needs at least three members in order to take official actions like starting a new investigative project or issuing a board report with a policy recommendation. Its work has included scrutiny of surveillance and bulk data collection activities, terrorism watch lists and the use of facial recognition and other biometrics at airports.

On Tuesday evening, each of the three members who were picked by Democrats — Sharon Bradford Franklin, Edward W. Felten and Travis LeBlanc — received an email from the White House telling them to submit resignation letters by the close of business on Jan. 23, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. They said the email, sent by Trent Morse, the deputy director of presidential personnel, told the board members that that President Trump would terminate their positions if they did not resign by that deadline.

The fifth seat is currently vacant. The Trump White House did not tell the board’s sole current Republican-picked member, Beth Williams, to leave, two of the people familiar with the matter said.

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.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is frequently critical of surveillance programs, denounced the move in a statement, saying it was related to accusations that Mr. Trump was trying to install his own loyalists and partisans at the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies to weaponize the government against his enemies.

“By purging the Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Trump is kneecapping one of the only independent watchdogs over government surveillance who could alert Congress and the public about surveillance abuses by his administration,” Mr. Wyden said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Board was initially set up as part of the White House operation, but Congress later decided to make it an independent agency within the executive branch so that its judgments would carry greater weight.

Ambiguously, however, while Congress declared that the agency was “independent,” the statute establishing the agency does not have a provision that bars presidents from removing its board members without a good cause like misconduct — the usual method by which independent agencies are protected from undue White House interference.

Advisers to Mr. Trump subscribe to a strong view of presidential power called the unitary executive theory, under which the Constitution should be interpreted as giving presidents exclusive control of the executive branch and independent agencies are considered illegitimate. During the campaign, Trump allies vowed to stomp out pockets of independence in the executive branch if he won the election.

Mr. Trump and his allies have been harshly critical of F.B.I. and spy agency power, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board has sometimes been aligned with that point of view. In 2023, its Democratic members annoyed the Biden White House by recommending that Congress require the F.B.I. to get court orders before looking for Americans’ private communications swept up by a warrantless surveillance program, which the Biden administration opposed.

Privacy advocates reacted with alarm. Among them, Jeramie Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center portrayed the Trump White House move as undercutting the purpose of the agency in being able to perform oversight free from interference.

“Calling for current Democratic members of the board to resign or be fired threatens independent oversight of surveillance programs by this administration and future administrations,” he said.

The board also plays a key role in an agreement between the United States and the European Union, which allows businesses to transfer Europeans’ personal data to the United States in part because the board exists as a check on surveillance practices and can oversee a process of addressing complaints from Europeans about any misuse of their data.

Among other things, the board must annually certify that a new Data Protection Review Court inside the Justice Department, which can investigate and render judgments on any European complaints, complies with the pact.

Still, Paul Rosenzweig, a former special advocate to represent Europeans before that court and who resigned this week in protest of Mr. Trump’s return to the presidency, disclosed in a blog post about his resignation that to date the court has yet to hear a case.

Board members either did not respond or declined to comment, and a spokesman for the agency did not have any immediate comment.

An ouster would mean little to Ms. Franklin, a former staff director for the agency who is now the board’s full-time chairwoman. Her term technically ended on Jan. 29, 2024. Under the agency’s statute, members can serve one additional year after their terms end, unless or until their successors are appointed, to keep their seats from becoming vacant. So Ms. Franklin was set to depart the board next week regardless.

But the term for Mr. Felten, a Princeton University computer science and public policy professor, is set to end on Jan. 29 of this year— meaning he has been set to stay in place for another year unless a replacement gets confirmed. And Mr. LeBlanc, a cybersecurity and data privacy lawyer, has been set to stay on the board until as late as January 2029.

While selected by congressional Democrats, both Mr. Felten and Mr. LeBlanc were appointed by Mr. Trump during his first term after also interviewing with the White House.