Sunday
Jan252009
Values vs. Security: Obama Decides to Keep (Illegal?) Surveillance Powers
Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 7:53
Amidst the celebration of President Obama's orders rolling back the Bush Administration's illegal sanction of Guantanamo Bay detention, rendition to CIA-run "black site" prisons, and torture, Obama --- quietly --- has held onto another significant extension of executive power. It appears the new President will maintain the Bush and Co. executive orders for wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping at home and abroad, bypassing the courts and the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
On Thursday, Obama's lawyers joined the former Bush Administration in urging a U.S. District judge to delay enforcement of an order that he issued on 5 January. The decision accepts as evidence "a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004".
In effect, Obama's officials are trying to prevent further exposure of the illegal surveillance, which first came to public notice in 2005, and thus forestall pressure to abandon Bush's executive order.
On Thursday, Obama's lawyers joined the former Bush Administration in urging a U.S. District judge to delay enforcement of an order that he issued on 5 January. The decision accepts as evidence "a classified document allegedly showing that two American lawyers for a now-defunct Saudi charity were electronically eavesdropped on without warrants by the Bush administration in 2004".
In effect, Obama's officials are trying to prevent further exposure of the illegal surveillance, which first came to public notice in 2005, and thus forestall pressure to abandon Bush's executive order.
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