"The Board is one of the few safeguards put into place to protect privacy and civil liberties following the major legal and policy changes put in place to help fight terrorism and strengthen law enforcement," according to the letter signed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Arab American Institute, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and several other groups. "As your own cybersecurity review found in May, it is important to reconstitute [the board], accelerate the selection for its board members and consider to seek legislative amendments to broaden its scope to include cybersecurity-related issues." The groups called on the president to appoint the board's members before the end of the year so they can be seated by early 2010. The ACLU expressed similar concern in a report released Tuesday that called for expanding the board's power and scope.