2008 Haltemprice and Howden by-election that if elected he would refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen in order to take up his seat. He opted to declare neither a party affiliation nor "Independent", so appeared on the ballot paper with no party label. Icke told the VoteWise website he had "no politics", and David Davis had a "lot he doesn't yet see". Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced that his party would not field a candidate in the by-election as the issue of civil liberties transcended party politics and the Liberal Democrats supported Davis's position on the issue,
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board 27, 2008 the Senate received President George W. Bush's first three nominations to the revamped PCLOB: Daniel W. Sutherland, Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security, to serve a six-year term as chair of the board; Ronald D. Rotunda, professor of law at George Mason University, to serve a four-year term as a member of the PCLOB; and Francis X. Taylor, a former member of the board, to a serve a two-year term. On September 8, 2008, President Bush made a fourth nomination, of James X. Dempsey, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy