Obama embraces Bush Torture/civil rights rules? (William Chirolas)

  The New York Times is beginning to join the Wall Street Journal and others in noticing that President Barrack Obama and George W. Bush are not that far apart -- at least as to security concepts.  Perhaps Obama love is wearing off?

  Reasons for the concern expressed by those that noted the similarity include:

  --Obama’s FISA vote authorizing eavesdropping on some phone calls and e-mail messages without a warrant.

  --Elena Kagan (nominee for solicitor general) telling the Senate that someone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law -- indefinite detention without a trial -- even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than in a physical battle zone.

  --Leon E. Panetta (nominee for C.I.A. director) disclosing a loophole in Mr. Obama’s interrogation restrictions, telling the Senate that if the approved techniques were “not sufficient” to get a detainee to divulge details he was suspected of knowing about an imminent attack, he would ask for “additional authority,” and also saying the C.I.A. might continue its “extraordinary rendition” program (seizing those suspected of terror, and flying them to countries that are believed to ignore torture restrictions and offer few legal rights, all without U.S. Court review, the administration depending on the receiving countries "assurance" it does not torture).

  --White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, told NY Times reporter Charlie Savage that “Every president in my lifetime has invoked the state-secrets privilege,” (but with Craig claiming it was not "the Bush approach" as Obama did more than try to keep evidence out of a trial -- he tried to use the state-secrets doctrine to shut down an entire case).  Craig also commented to Jane Mayer, reporter for the New Yorker about the concept of taking a person off the street and holding him forever without there ever being a Court hearing -- indefinite detention without charge or court review, "preventive detention" -- that "It's possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law."

  The fact is that it appears Obama is in no hurry to renounce many Bush-era policies (e.g. imprisonment without trial of an “enemy combatant” on domestic soil, rejection of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking legal opinions about interrogation and surveillance, and use of executive-privilege to reject Congressional subpoenas of former White House aides to Mr. Bush over the firing of United States attorneys).

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  William Chirolas brings 40 years of real-world business experience in local, state, national, and international tax, pensions, and finance to the world of blogging. A graduate of MIT, he calls the Boston area home, except when visiting kids and grandkids.