Obama: change, but for the worse
p2pnet news view Politics | Freedom:- Barack Obama comes across as genuinely nice guy – honest, caring, smart.
That’s why he was elected.
“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” he promised on January 21.
But after only a short time in office, he’s acquired a nickname that’s fast gaining currency.
Bushobama.
Things are already bad, very bad, in the Department of Justice where Vivendi Universal (France), Sony (Japan), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music’s (US) RIAA has been able to entrench two of its long-time corporate music industry operatives into top slots.
VP Joe Biden is also a hard-core entertainment cartel supporter.
But in MediaSentry and RIAA: government probe? – “Maybe the Obama administration will have the basic honesty and decency to decide it`s now time to correct the terrible wrongs still inflicted by the corporate music industry on innocent people, including children as young as Obama`s own daughters,” we said.
However, in a comment to the story, “Obama kills justice,” said a Reader’s Write, linking to a post in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ’s New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush’s.
Deeply troubling arguments
“We had hoped this would go differently,” writes Tim Jones in the EFF article, echoing the thoughts of millions of Americans.
In a motion to dismiss Jewel v NSA, the EFF’s litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, “the Obama Administration’s made two deeply troubling arguments,” he says, continuing »»»
First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue “would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.” As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence.
It’s an especially disappointing argument to hear from the Obama Administration. As a candidate, Senator Obama lamented that the Bush Administration “invoked a legal tool known as the ’state secrets’ privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.” He was right then, and we’re dismayed that he and his team seem to have forgotten.
Sad as that is, it’s the Department Of Justice’s second argument that is the most pernicious. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying â that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes.
This is a radical assertion that is utterly unprecedented. No one â not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration â has ever interpreted the law this way.
Previously, the Bush Administration has argued that the U.S. possesses “sovereign immunity” from suit for conducting electronic surveillance that violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, FISA is only one of several laws that restrict the government’s ability to wiretap. The Obama Administration goes two steps further than Bush did, and claims that the US PATRIOT Act also renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. Essentially, the Obama Adminstration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.
Again, the gulf between Candidate Obama and President Obama is striking. As a candidate, Obama ran promising a new era of government transparency and accountability, an end to the Bush DOJ’s radical theories of executive power, and reform of the PATRIOT Act. But, this week, Obama’s own Department Of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws.
“This isn’t change we can believe in,” says Jones, adding:
“This is change for the worse.”
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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April 9th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I hate to say it, but we told you so.
Makes me wonder, would it have been any worse if Mccane had been elected?
I doubt it would have been any better, but at least we would have known what was coming.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:28 am
The votes were shared between these two: Obushma and McBush.
But the problem can’t be solved even by those who promise solution, like Chuck Baldwin, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:59 am
“As a candidate, Senator Obama lamented that the Bush Administration âinvoked a legal tool known as the âstate secretsâ privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.â He was right then, and weâre dismayed that he and his team seem to have forgotten”
As a candidate, he THOUGHT he knew what he could do, as President he found out the hard way that most things CANNOT be changed
The Obamanation is here, can we live with it ???
April 9th, 2009 at 11:08 am
the pic says it all
April 9th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
All politicians are lying weasals.
April 9th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Haven’t people figured out politics is basically like pro wrestling? In front of the camera, they’re rivals and seem to be opposing each other, but behind the scenes it’s all buddy-buddy. It’s nothing more than a show put on to foment the illusion of choice, while the truth is the two parties are just sides of the same coin. The only things that will change under Obullma is the higher rate of inflation and the amount of taxes levied against the people. Just wait for all the “green” taxes to start showing up, using exaggerated global warming graphs and flimsy hypotheses as an excuse instead of actual long-term research and scientific method. Yes, the earth is warming up, mostly due to increased solar flare activity-our collective CO2 emissions don’t even come close to equaling that of the Earth’s volcanoes, so how could we be solely responsible?
April 9th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I had a bit of hope that Obama genuinely would to do some good and wasn’t just talking out of his ass, but once I saw his secretary appointments most of my hope for this presidency faded.
It’s staggering how the Democrats can criticize the Bush administration (and rightly so) for their overspending and massive deficits over the last 8 years, but once the Democrats got into power they did the EXACT same thing as Bush, except on a level never before seen in US history. When asked about it, all they say is, “Well it’s all Bush’s fault for spending too much when he was in power before us.” Then fix it, you dummies! Don’t just keep doing more of thes same thing! To make matters worse, the Democrats are all patting themselves on the back for spending record amounts of money so fast, like it’s some sort of great achievement or something.
I hope Obama is only a one-term President. It’s nice that he’s taken some of the “religious morality” out of White House politics, but overall, he’s not the answer. Sorry guys, you all have to do better than that.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:15 am
A front man for the NWO just like the last guy.
April 11th, 2009 at 10:18 am
The American people need to break the stranglehold by professional politicians and bureaucrats and force one term limits on politicians, and mandatory performance reviews on bureaucrats. The bottom twenty percent should be returned to civilian life on an annual basis.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
We The People need to take our country back …. PEACEFULLY. Vote the corrupt DC political machine out, get back to our countries roots! We need a … public election … heck lots of them to make the change. It can be done and they cannot stop it.