Obama Claims “State Secrets” Privilege to Defend Bush-era Warrantless Surveillance Program
It’s been great to see the Obama administration trimming the excesses of the Bush administration’s curtailment of civil liberties, but the disappointing reality remains that the rollback of Bush-era rules is pretty limited, as we see with the latest invocation of “state secrets” as a reason to prevent the public from finding out what kind of surveillance is happening.
Unfortunately, while disappointing this is also all rather predictable. Civil liberties is a bit of a ratchet. If the political opposition doesn’t succeed in blocking some new expansion of authority when it’s first proposed, the soon enough the opposition takes over and isn’t all that interested in curtailing its own authority. Consequently, more and more powers and secrecy start developing, abuses occur, and eventually there’s some big blowup and outraged and new rules get put into place. After all, all this has happened before. When electronic surveillance first became possible, it was immediately put into use and each successive administration found ways to expand its scope. From the beginning, there were abuses happening. And under Richard Nixon the abuses both became enormous and were uncovered. Then new rules were put into place. Rules that have been eroding ever since—first slowly, then quickly—and will probably continue to erode until the next huge scandal.
20 Responses to “Obama Claims “State Secrets” Privilege to Defend Bush-era Warrantless Surveillance Program”
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April 7th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Great observation.
But privacy and secret information gathering is the one area where Obama, a former constitutional law professor, falls most short of expectations and his own campaign promises.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
That’s what this counter-effort has been missing so far: a huge scandal, or at least a well-publicized list of smaller scandals. Until John and Jane Q. Not-A-Terrorist starts to feel this kind of surveillance is a threat to their own persons, they are not going to exert any political pressure to change the rules.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
As scurrilous as his actions were, Dick Chaney knew what he was doing when he laid down the challenge by saying publicly that Obama had, or would, make the country less safe by ending the programs Chaney and Bush had created. By doing so Cheney created a political liability problem for Obama that he is obviously not eager to tempt, should we ever be attacked again, no matter how much Obama might personally disagree with the radicalism of the programs themselves.
April 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Shouldn’t warrantless wiretapping of American citizens be that next huge scandal? Wouldn’t it be if the MSM was actually concerned with pursuing it?
April 7th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I don’t see how a “bigger” scandal could even occur. The government illegally spied on millions of Americans. It also tortured American citizens into insanity without so much as a charge against them — yet another area the Obama admin is shielding from daylight.
If this is “Change,” we all got ripped off.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Mark R, i agree — but as huge as warrantless wiretapping is, it’s not as huge a scandal as COINTELPRO and other mid-century surveillance abuses were. Yet.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I think this is one of the situations where Obama is being forced to defend a particular executive power he agrees with (state secrets regarding intelligence gathering, in this case) applied to something that he’d likely not do (warrentless wiretapping). Ditto for defending Bush’s justifications for certain detention issues even though Obama would not have exercised that power in that way. It’s a tricky situation, and one that could be helped, I think, by going public with as much information as possible as quickly as possible, and proactively informing people what these programs were and how he’s changing them… see efforts to release torture memos now. Obama might oppose, say, a FOIA request of those memos based on executive privilege or something, but he can go a long way by releasing as much information as possible before he has to defend his authority not to release it.
It would also help to work with Congress to pass new legislation updating secrets laws as necessary.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Unfortunately both you and commenter Jim are right. This SHOULD be a big enough scandal to occasion nation-wide outrage, but the folks who were spied on or even tortured probably had funny last names, so the nation has collectively shrugged. I guess we get the change we ask for.
April 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I think this is going to be the standard line in the liberal blogosphere: “I take civil liberties seriously but no one else does so I’m just going to let Glenn Greenwald do the outrage thing publcly.”
April 7th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
But, but: we’re going to use those powers for GOOD, not EVIL!
April 7th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Sources and methods are always classified. There is probably a lot a FOIA request could get concerning this surveillance, but anything that could lead to how it is being done is not going to be released for 25 years or so, at the earliest. You might be able to get a FISA judge to determine if the method is intrinsically only useful in a way that violates civil rights, but even then, that would only get the method prohibitted. It wouldn’t lead to revealing what it was.
Asking why it was done, who would potentially be affected, what is done with the information after it is determined to be of no intelligence vale etc. should be answerable.
April 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
One word: suckers.
April 7th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Rules that have been eroding ever since—first slowly, then quickly—and will probably continue to erode until the next huge scandal.
What the fuck? Talk about missing the point. Uh, Matt? We just had that huge scandal — and now the rules are out the fucking window, not being restored by some liberal dialectic.
It’s just eroding until it erodes even more. And it’ll probably continue eroding until, well, until there ain’t nothing left to erode is my guess. We’re almost there now. Wake up, Matthew.
April 7th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
This is Congress’ fault. The executive branch seeks to maximize its power. It’s not going to surrender institutional power in most instances.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
“One word: suckers.”
Yes, because we all know the McCain’s first act in office would’ve been to make all this public.
The issue here isn’t Obama, it’s that ANY person in power doesn’t want to give up one iota of that power, for reasons MY states above. As much as I dislike Bush, Cheney and their ilk, I do think the Bush Administration thought it was protecting America by doing this, although they were demonstrably wrong. Road to hell, and all that.
Congress keeps trying to buck Obama. They should start by making anti-spying laws stronger to protect us all. On this issue, the Administration is the enemy, it’s up to all of us to put pressure on them to open up.
Incidently, I’d like to see a post by MY on great leaders who’ve given up absolute power in the service of democracy. George Washington and Spain’s King Juan Carlos I come to mind.
April 7th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I’ve always been a fan of Obama, and I’m proud to have voted for him. But this is inexcusable. Obama used to teach Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. He should know that it’s important to our way of government to honor the request for the memos, unless there’s an incredibly good reason not to. He should also know that it’s almost always better to deal with issues like torture in the broad daylight of full disclosure. It’s a shame that Bush began torture as an all-but-official American policy. Obama must not continue it.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:43 am
I voted for Obama. I’m stunned. I can think of no excuse for this. Its wrong. I’m not only disappointed but angry and feeling betrayed. He promised change?
April 8th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Where did I say anything in favor of McCain?
You’re suckers because you drank the Obama Kool-Aid and Matt still drinks it daily.
April 8th, 2009 at 4:22 am
Do you really think we’re ever going to find out enough about what is being done for there to BE a huge scandal? Dream on. Today’s surveillance techniques are light years beyond what Nixon dreamed of. Bush knew he’d never be held to account, and Obama knows it too. Privacy is a thing of the past.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hi. It is not enough to aim; you must hit.
I am from Nauru and now teach English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Faqs page to get more information about airline tickets.”
Best regards 8), Will.