I’m clearly a supporter of our new president, and I supported Barack Obama in the last general election (although I was an Edwards guy during the primary season), and he is definitely not the same as the old president. However, today the Department of Justice continued the Bush administration practice of asserting the “state secrets” privilege in the case of 5 people who were subjected to the Bush-admin policy of “extraoardinary rendition,” in which they were snatched up by the CIA (in foreign countries), and sent to other foreign countries with no qualms about torture (i.e. Egypt, in one case) for the express purpose of being tortured. Glenn Greenwald has a devastating post on why this is an epic fail by the Obama administration. Here’s hoping that Obama’s DOJ reverses course on this ASAP.
UPDATE: Here’s more from Glenn. Further, John Cole at Balloon Juice has an opinion on why Obama might be asserting the state secrets privilege here:
The only justifiable decision here would be to revoke the Bush DoJ’s attempt to use State Secrets to block not only specific evidence but any hearing at all. However, doing so would almost certainly compel a wider investigation and likely criminal charges against former government officials. To avoid being seen as the President who put his last administration on trial Obama must resort to the exact same heinous abuses of power that made the Bush DoJ into a national disgrace.
I understand that point, but to me that spells out clearly why both Obama’s desire for “bipartisanship” and his repeated statements of not pursuing criminal action against the past administration are so wanting. If criminal acts were committed by the previous administration, they must be prosecuted… Above all, the rule of law must be elevated, and it must be made clear that no one is above the law. It must be apparent that law-breaking, by anyone, will be punished and will not be tolerated. If it is swept under the rug, there is no real deterrent to future law-breakers. The correct response (at least in my opinion) when Obama is confronted with the question of whether the previous administration will be prosecuted should be “Well, where there is evidence of wrongdoing, we will investigate the actions of the previous administration. If no laws were broken, no prosecutions will be undertaken. However, if laws were broken and violated, then those people responsible will be prosecuted, as is the case when any laws are broken. No one is above the law, PERIOD.”
