not the Obama we elected

I found a very well written article by Salon's Glenn Greenwald that addresses the things I've been covering the past few weeks with the Obama administration. It gives an all encompassing explanation of what has happened with the administration trying to invoke the "state secrets" argument regarding the NSA wiretapping cases and taking it a step further, and the prison in Bagram, Afghanistan that is becoming a worse version of Guantanamo. Please read it and pass it along. Obama was elected on the basis that he would fight these issues not embrace them. From the beginning of the article:

In the last week alone, the Obama DOJ (a) attempted to shield Bush's illegal spying programs from judicial review by (yet again) invoking the very "state secrets" argument that Democrats spent years condemning and by inventing a brand new "sovereign immunity" claim that not even the Bush administration espoused, and (b) argued that individuals abducted outside of Afghanistan by the U.S. and then "rendered" to and imprisoned in Bagram have no rights of any kind -- not even to have a hearing to contest the accusations against them -- even if they are not Afghans and were captured far away from any "battlefield." These were merely the latest -- and among the most disturbing -- in a string of episodes in which the Obama administration has explicitly claimed to possess the very presidential powers that Bush critics spent years condemning as radical, lawless and authoritarian.

The Obama administration has declined to comment on the "state secrets" legislation introduced by democrats in the Senate that would roll back the use of this argument. The administration is still embracing this argument to protect the Bush's administration illegal wiretapping program.

The administration is also considering whether to fully release details on torture methods used under the Bush administration and the ACLU fears the administration maydestroy evidence of torture under the Bush administration.

I am not aware of any campaigns that are pressing Obama to reverse the trend he's going in on these topics. If you know of one please let me know. Obama should be held accountable for holding the opposite of positions he held during the campaign.


It's not only in the the States where this shit is happening. In the UK police pre-emptively raided climate change protesters. More...