President Obama to discuss NSA in first meeting with civil liberties board

President Barack Obama will meet for the first time with an independent oversight board tasked with examining privacy and civil liberties issues within the federal government, as the White House looks to deflect criticism over a pair of recently revealed National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs.

The meeting with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is a chance for the five-member panel to share their concerns with the President about the government's top-secret Internet and telephone monitoring programs. President Obama has billed the oversight board as a counterweight to the government's surveillance programs, saying earlier this week that the panel served as a check on the data mining programs secretly authorized under the Patriot Act. The White House believes that meeting with the panel can help assuage privacy concerns voiced since the revelation of the NSA programs. The senior administration official said the board's functions included "ensuring that the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties."