On reason that I, and many of you, supported Barack Obama's candidacy and election was because we viewed him as a clean break from President Bush on many issues, including secret government spying programs, warrantless wiretaps and legislation that weakens civil liberty safeguards.
During a campaign rally at Dartmouth in January 2008, candidate Obama pledged to end the Bush-Cheney era of "wiretaps without warrants."
When Bush was President, we opposed Congress' capitulation on the FISA bill that retroactively sanctioned wiretapping programs that were illegal when the acts were committed and shielding Telcos from litigation (which, regrettably, Senator Obama voted affirmatively.)
Now that Obama is President, these programs and activities are JUST AS unpalatable as when President Cheney Bush was sanctioning them, and we should oppose them. That's why I am so disappointed that President Obama's is taking the same position as President Bush and the Justice Department is asking to dismiss wiretap lawsuits (Jewel vs NSA.)
Although the Obama/Biden website notes as a "problem," "[t]he Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the "state secrets" privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court,"
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. link
As someone who campaigned for President Obama, donated money to him and hosted an inauguration party for him, my disappointment cannot be understated. Now that Obama heads the Executive Branch, he wants to reserve powers for himself that he considered unwarranted (pun intended) powers under President Bush. I hope it's not like the characters in Orwell's Animal Farm, who once they take control of the farm, become what they detested in the human farmers.