Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

The President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) is an advisor to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. According to its self-description, it "...provides advice to the President concerning the quality and adequacy of intelligence collection, of analysis and estimates, of counterintelligence, and of other intelligence activities."

The PIAB, through its Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), also advises the President on the legality of foreign intelligence activities.

The agency, originally known as the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities (PBCFIA), was created in January 1956 by the Dwight D. Eisenhower. The first board under Chair James Killian were:

John F. Kennedy later renamed it to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) on May 4, 1961. Most recently, the agency was renamed yet again by president George W. Bush to its present form on February 29, 2008. The board exists at the pleasure of the President, who can change its size and portfolio. President Jimmy Carter abolished the PFIAB in 1977 but President Ronald Reagan re-established it later.

Most of the board's work is secret, but one very public investigation involved the loss of U.S. nuclear secrets to China from the Los Alamos National Laboratory during the 1990s.

President Gerald Ford created the IOB following a 1975–76 investigation by the US Congress into domestic spying, assassination operations, and other abuses by intelligence agencies. His executive order doing so went into effect on March 1, 1976. In 1993, the IOB became a committee of the PFIAB, under Executive Order #12863 of President Bill Clinton.

One of the IOB's functions is to examine violations of the laws and directives governing clandestine surveillance. The IOB received quarterly and annual reports from most US intelligence activities. Thirteen cases involving FBI actions between 2002 and 2004 were referred to the IOB for its review.

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