San Francisco - The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration's position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency's (NSA's) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday.
In Jewel v. NSA, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets." These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF's lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying.
"President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration's cover-up of the National Security Agency's dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a 'secret' that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again."
Monday, April 06, 2009
EFF: Obama Administration Takes Bush Position On Warrantless Wiretapping
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, whose goals I support as you can tell from the banner at the bottom of this website, has issued a statement today saying that the Obama Administration has taken the same position as George W. Bush on warrantless wiretapping. Just a note: this is NOT change we can believe in.
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2 comments:
This is looking a lot like Bush's third term. Seriously. I'm not trying to bust your chops. There has been some reconciliation attempts on the foreign relations side, and a few minor changes in some policies, but from Obama's continuation of Bush's policies concerning terror detainees to the expansion of deficit spending and bailouts, there's been little to differentiate the two thus far. At what point will Obama's supporters begin to realize they've been sold a bill of goods?
Also, you have a typo in your headline. Double up on the r's in warrant.
Hey, Nick.
I see the Obama administration is also claiming sovereign immunity in this case, which seems to mean that they think they can spy on our email and phone calls and we can't do squat about it. State secrets and sovereign immunity - in other words, nothing short of an overthrow of the government can get them to stop them. I bet Bush and Co. are thinking, DAMN, these guys are good!
Bush ripped the Constitution to shreds, and Obama's grinding it into the dirt.
The Republicans can scream all they want, but nobody is going to pay any attention because they've lost all credibility. Will folks on the left wake up and start thinking "WTF?"? What happens then? I think Obama could wind up less impressive than Carter. At least Jimmy deregulated the airlines and legalized home brewing.
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