Posts
"Though Obama’s made several clear steps toward change from the previous administration — here we pause to cite elements from the now-familiar litany: closed Guantanamo and the black sites, ended the use of torture in interrogations, made public several eye-opening post-9/11 Bush Justice Department memoranda — there has also been confusion on some issues, like rendition, and in court cases Obama lawyers have increasingly invoked Bush-era arguments, or worse.
'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.'
"That’s Glenn Greenwald from Monday in Salon, in a lengthy and thorough review of the administration’s recent displeasing moves and the tide of criticism rising in response."
