Yet another demonstration of how important it is for those of us on the rational side of the spectrum to avoid the cult of personality that we endured for eight years during the Bush era. The Obama administration has taken an even more extreme position regarding government wiretaps than that taken by the Bushies.
Not only are they using the states secret doctrine ( a governmental license to commit any crime, and then excuse itself) to try to defeat the lawsuit, but it is claiming immunity unless a victim can prove that the government willfully disclosed information it illegally obtained.
Glenn Greenwald discusses the nuances here. One of his concluding paragraphs sums it up:
What’s being asserted here by the Obama DOJ is the virtually absolute power of presidential secrecy, the right to break the law with no consequences, and immunity from surveillance lawsuits so sweeping that one can hardly believe that it’s being claimed with a straight face. 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.
The lesson here, if we really needed it, is that no president can be trusted to safeguard our civil liberties. Unfortunately, we have arrived at a moment in history when no branch of government is up to the job. The courts, despite the presence of some good judges in the district courts, are under the thumb of a politicized Supreme Court that was, until now perhaps, an enabler of presidential lawlessness. The Congress has rendered itself impotent. Pat Leahy is even backing off of his Truth Commssion because it lacks a single Republican supporter, thus making it impossible for it to be comfortably bi-partisan. Why he wants a bi-partisan commission, which is another name for a truth burying commission (see, e.g., 9/11 Commission) is mystifying. The Republicans were quite happy to investigate Clinton for eight years on a partisan basis. That proves it can be done, and in this case is should be done, but it won’t be done.
So we hapless citizens are in this one alone. Obama will not surrender the power Bush illegally grabbed, and no one else in our governmental system is going to grab it back from him.
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