Obama Administration Maintains Bush Legal Argument for Terrorist Surveillance Secrecy

[CSM]

Obama Administration Maintains Bush Legal Argument for Terrorist Surveillance Secrecy

President Obama's most liberal supporters are dismayed and disgusted ... because this administration is invoking the "state secrets" privilege.

Monday, April 13, 2009

President Obama's most liberal supporters say they are dismayed and disgusted because this administration is invoking the "state secrets" privilege -- just as former President George W. Bush did -- to shield eavesdropping programs from public exposure.

"I wasn't happy when George Bush asserted that he could do these things and I'm not happy that President Obama is now agreeing with George Bush," said Jane Hamsher of Accountability Now.

"Other than being flat wrong, the Obama administration's position is seriously disappointing to those Americans who listened to candidate Obama's promises of a new era of government accountability and transparency, said Kevin Bankston, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

EFF sued the government claiming that AT&T and perhaps other telecommunications companies cooperated with it to allow access to people's phone and Internet records -- a so-called dragnet in a search for terrorist communications.

Obama criticized the cooperation during the campaign, calling it an abuse of authority and arguing that the Bush administration "undermined the Constitution."

Now, the Obama administration is trying to have that same lawsuit dismissed.

"For the Obama administration now to try to have our lawsuit dismissed based on the exact same state secrecy arguments is quite a turnaround and very disappointing," Bankston said.

Top Obama officials, including Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, dispute the assertions claimed in the suit.

"Admiral Blair in two separate affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury has flatly said that the allegations of dragnet NSA surveillance are quote 'false' close quote," said Bryan Cunningham, a former CIA and Justice Department attorney.

After a full review, Attorney General Eric Holder and the administration has asked the case be dismissed, arguing that hearing it would cause "extremely grave harm to national security. "

"The Obama administration is making a very spirited, a very robust assertion of state secrets privilege just like the Bush administration did before it," said former Justice Department attorney Dave Rivkin.

"You would think that if the critics were sincere in the past but had real problems with the Bush administration they might take some note of this but no they are really not interested. They are just as disinclined to trust the Obama administration's officials when it comes to balancing individual liberty and public safety as they were with regard to .... officials of the Bush administration," he said.

"This is the attorney general and the director of national intelligence that were strongly supported by the left wing of the Democratic Party and I don't know what critics think happened," Cunningham said. "I don't know if they think Admiral Blair and Attorney General Holder got sent into the Dick Cheney mind meld machine or what."

Instead of the mind meld, analysts say Obama's eyes were opened as he learned more about the program and now realizes it is both lawful and necessary. But critics don't accept that. They think they've been betrayed by the man they expected to reverse almost every policy of the Bush years, especially this one.

[CSM]

Legal left cools toward Obama - Josh Gerstein - POLITICO.com

Legal left cools toward Obama
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/13/09 6:28 PM EDT Updated: 4/13/09 10:57 PM EDT


It’s not just Paul Krugman anymore.

A growing chorus on the legal left is cooling toward President Barack Obama as a result of recent actions by the Justice Department vigorously defending the Bush administration in what it termed the war on terror.

“Obama Position on Illegal Spying: Worse Than Bush,” a large graphic declared over the weekend on the home page of a respected group advocating freedom on the Internet, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Obama has been pilloried by a liberal TV icon who was one of President George W. Bush’s most vociferous critics, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

“During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, argued strongly against the Bush administration’s use of executive authority, including its self-justification, its rationalization of the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens,” Olbermann said on his show last week. “That was then. This is now. ... Welcome to change you cannot believe in — or sue over.”

Obama is also under withering attack from an attorney who was one of the most widely read critics of Bush’s legal strategy in the war on terror, Glenn Greenwald. He recently blasted Obama administration moves as “extremist” and “bizarre.”

“Reading this brief from the Obama DOJ is so striking — and more than a little depressing — given how indistinguishable it is from everything that poured out of the Bush DOJ regarding secrecy powers in order to evade all legal accountability,” he wrote on Salon last week, before calling his fellow civil libertarians to rise up. “It is simply inexcusable for those who spent the last several years screaming when the Bush administration did exactly this to remain silent now or, worse, to search for excuses to justify this behavior,” he said.

The new wave of criticism was triggered by two actions in recent weeks by the Justice Department.
First, earlier this month, the department presented an expansive series of arguments urging a federal court in San Francisco to throw out a lawsuit over warrantless surveillance first filed against Bush. The department’s brief not only asserted the state secrets privilege, which has long infuriated civil libertarians, but also made a sweeping assertion that Americans have no rights to challenge surveillance that violates the law unless the information is improperly released.

Then, on Friday, the department issued similarly broad arguments against a court ruling giving legal rights to some detainees held by the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The government motion said the decision could aid “enemies of the United States” by allowing them to use “the U.S. court system as a tactical weapon.” The filing led to a New York Times editorial Monday sharply criticizing Obama for positioning Bagram as “the next Guantanamo.”

Obama administration officials insist that critics are jumping the gun. A Justice Department official said some of the recent arguments are essentially intended to buy time for a review Obama has ordered of procedures and policies regarding detainees.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said Obama deserves credit for announcing the closure of Guantanamo and banning the use of torture. The aide also pointed to Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement to CBS News last week that he soon expects to reverse the Bush administration assertion of the state secrets privilege in at least one case.

But liberal attorneys, who set up groups such as “Habeas Lawyers for Obama” during the campaign, complain that Obama is walking away from statements he made as a senator and presidential candidate rebuking the Bush administration for putting prisoners beyond the reach of the law.

“Obama has said no place should be out of reach of the law. Now, he’s done precisely that,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. “You have this administration routinely stating principles as a precursor to violating those very same principles.”

Several organizers of Habeas Lawyers for Obama declined to be quoted or interviewed by POLITICO.

However, one who spoke but asked not to be named because he regularly deals with top Obama officials, said he understands the growing skepticism. “I can understand people’s concern and frustration and I am concerned myself,” the lawyer said. “The tone of the Bagram filing was more strident than I certainly would have hoped.”

The Obama supporter said he is confident that Obama’s senior legal team at the Justice Department and the White House will translate in time to vastly different policies.

“There just a world of difference between the people who are handling those legal areas and those who were before,” the attorney said, though he added that he thought the Obama legal team was “absolutely overwhelmed” by the amount of work it faces.

Still, critics such as Greenwald insist that the recent Obama administration acts on secrets and Bagram need to be publicly denounced.

“It would require a virtually pathological level of tribal loyalty and monumental intellectual dishonesty not to object just as vehemently as we watch the Obama DOJ repeatedly invoke these very same theories and, in this instance, actually invent a new one that not even the Bush administration espoused,” he wrote.

“When Bush asserted the power to abduct people and put them in prison for life with no charges, he was a Constitution-hating tyrant. When Obama does it, he’s being really careful and cautious and doing it to protect us for really good reasons even if we can’t know what they are and he won’t tell us,” Greenwald wrote, mockingly summarizing the arguments of Obama defenders.

Holder has set a speech Wednesday night at West Point, which would be a logical forum to lay out the administration's views in more detail. Aides would not discuss specifics of his speech but said it would address "rule of law" issues.

Still, the anger could intensify Thursday when more Bush administration memos are expected to be released in connection with an ACLU lawsuit. An earlier release of similar memos put the focus on perceived transgressions of the Bush administration. Now, activists may hone in instead on how the Obama White House is following in Bush’s legal footsteps.

[FORD]

Is that you, Agent Z?

[CSM]

Is that you, Agent Z?

Who??

[Nickdfresh]

He means the poster formerly known as Lucky Wilbury...

[CSM]

He means the poster formerly known as Lucky Wilbury...

then why did he say agent z?

[Nickdfresh]

then why did he say agent z?

"Agent Zimmerman" was his ode to the Bob Dylan avatar (Dylan's real name)...


Looks like he got the delete treatment for the crime of not recently posting by a certain former Webbie that shall remain nameless...

http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/front-line/762-clarks-words-draw-new-scrutiny.html

[Guitar Shark]

former? did I miss something?

[ELVIS]

Is this change, or more of the same ??

[Andy Taylor]

Unfortunately people believe that power is ok as long as it is in "their" hands. Only when it's the opposite party that enforces programs like these does it become a threat. What a sad joke.

[Nickdfresh]

former? did I miss something?

Oooppseee...

Freudian slip...

[Nickdfresh]

Is this change, or more of the same ??

Well, would you care if he didn't?

Obama has rolled back several Bush's creepier anti-civil rights-scoff laws and executive branch excesses such as "signing statements" and many of the legal wranglings above are a hangover from the previous, super-secret White House...

Obama Rolls Back Unconstitutional George W. Bush Signing Statement Policy - Robert Schlesinger (usnews.com)

His Justice Dept. has also began to scrutinize the actions of the previous admin, such as their letting off Ted Stevens and actually investigating the prosecutors for misconduct...

[swage33]

Unfortunately people believe that power is ok as long as it is in "their" hands. Only when it's the opposite party that enforces programs like these does it become a threat. What a sad joke.

I have to compliment you on your take here, but, would have to add some more shit. Why is Bush a villian for this and Obama is not? you know, I bullshit alot and fuck with a few people on this board but this is a prime example of blindness. I don't want liberals to label Obama a villian, I want liberals to admit that they wallow in hate. I want them to admit that they will take any scratch and turn it into a full blown bullet wound to the head. ANY SANE PERSON would come to the conclusion that our principles provide a weapon for the unprincipled. Obama sees this and this stance could hurt him politically...same as Bush, but he is doing what he thinks is right. Is that not the epitome of a leader?

[ELVIS]

His Justice Dept. has also began to scrutinize the actions of the previous admin, such as their letting off Ted Stevens and actually investigating the prosecutors for misconduct...

Yeah ??

Click on this...and read it!

THAT is fucking bullshit!

[Andy Taylor]

I have to compliment you on your take here, but, would have to add some more shit. Why is Bush a villian for this and Obama is not? you know, I bullshit alot and fuck with a few people on this board but this is a prime example of blindness. I don't want liberals to label Obama a villian, I want liberals to admit that they wallow in hate. I want them to admit that they will take any scratch and turn it into a full blown bullet wound to the head. ANY SANE PERSON would come to the conclusion that our principles provide a weapon for the unprincipled. Obama sees this and this stance could hurt him politically...same as Bush, but he is doing what he thinks is right. Is that not the epitome of a leader?

A lot of people do what they think is right. Bush did but he didn't come anywhere a mile from the bottom rung of leadership. To me they're two sides of the same coin. But yeah I call it blindness, it's two groups bashing each other when really they're just swapping their team jersey's from time to time.