(2006-1014-F) Zoe Baird - PFIAB

The materials in FOIA 2006-1014-F are a selective body of documents responsive to the topic of the FOIA. Researchers should consult the archivist about related materials. Zoë Baird was appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton to serve on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) on September 30, 1993. She served on the board until 2001. While on the Board, she was appointed to serve as a member of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community. She also was Chair of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Law Enforcement. Baird earned her Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a juris doctor from the University of California, Berkeley’s, Boalt Hall School of Law. After graduating she spent one year in the Office of Legal Counsel as an assistant attorney. In 1980, she accepted a position as Associate Counsel for President Jimmy Carter. Following the election of President Ronald Regan, Baird practiced law in the Washington, D.C. office of O’Melveny & Meyers. Baird left O’Melveny & Meyers to become a senior executive and member of counsel for the General Electric Corporation. From 1992 to 1996, Baird was Vice President and General Counsel of the Aetna Life & Casualty Company. It was during this time that she was most infamously known. President Clinton chose Baird as his first selection for Attorney General of the United States. During the vetting process, it was learned that Baird had not paid Social Security taxes on illegal immigrants that she hired to work in her home. The events, dubbed by some as “nannygate,” led to Baird withdrawing her name from consideration. Following this failed candidacy, Baird returned to Aetna and was briefly a visiting scholar at Yale Law School. Baird is currently the president of the Markle Foundation, whose work focuses on the use of information technology, primarily in the areas of health care and national security. The President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Executive Order 10656, signed February 6, 1956, created the President’s Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities. Eisenhower believed that this board of respected and knowledgeable citizens could provide him with unbiased and candid appraisals of United States’ intelligence activities. President John Kennedy, by the signing of Executive Order 10938 on May 4, 1961, renamed the Board of Consultants, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Though the name was changed, the board continued to operate in much the same fashion. Executive Order 11460, signed by President Richard Nixon on March 20, 1969, again changed the name of the PFIAB to the President’s Advisory Intelligence Board. President Jimmy Carter abolished the board in March of 1977. Carter did however, retain the Intelligence Oversight Board. The IOB was created by President Gerald Ford in 1976 following a post Watergate investigation by Congress into potential illegal activities of the intelligence agencies. The IOB was tasked with reporting potential illegal activities to the Department of Justice for review. As Ford told Congress in 1976, “I believe [the changes] will eliminate abuses and questionable activities on the part of the foreign intelligence agencies while at the same time allowing them to get on with their vital work of gathering and assessing information.” President Ronald Reagan modified the role of the IOB in 1981 and re-established the PFIAB in 1985 by signing Executive Order 12537. President William Jefferson Clinton combined the IOB and the PFIAB, making the IOB a committee rather than an independent organization. President George W. Bush radically modified the role of both the IOB and the PFIAB following the creation of a Director of National Intelligence. The newly named President’s Intelligence Advisory Board was designated to oversee the intelligence collection activities of any Federal agency engaged in the collection of intelligence or the production of intelligence policy. President Barak Obama more clearly defined the role of the PIAB and strengthened the IOB with the passage of Executive Order 13516. Under President Clinton the PFIAB had between eleven and twelve members, by law it could be no more than sixteen, whose terms were established by the President. Members were chosen for their independence, knowledge, and experience. The members of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board serve as unpaid observers of United States intelligence community. Much of their work is highly secret in nature though Presidents have chosen on occasion to make the Board’s reports, or portions thereof, public. The members of the Board are appointed by the President and the Director serves at the leisure of the President. Clinton Presidential Records relating to Zoë Baird consist of clippings, correspondence, emails, forms, memoranda, and statements describing Baird’s appointment and service on the PFIAB. Automated Records Management System [Email] (ARMS) e-mail records responsive to this FOIA originate in the following agencies: Office of Policy Development (OPD), Office of the White House (WHO), and Default e-mails belonging to no specific agency. These e-mails are primarily administrative in nature relating to Baird’s appointment and service on the PFIAB.