Obama Administration Defends Warrantless Wiretapping

a whoabot writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has stepped in to defend AT&T in the case over their participation in the warrantless wiretapping program started by Bush. The Obama administration argues that that continuation of the case will lead to the disclosure of important 'state secrets.' The Electronic Frontier Foundation has described the action as an 'embrace' of the Bush policy." Update: 04/07 15:18 GMT by T : Glenn Greenwald of Salon has up an analysis of this move, including excerpts from the actual brief filed. Excerpt: "This brief and this case are exclusively the Obama DOJ's, and the ample time that elapsed — almost three full months — makes clear that it was fully considered by Obama officials."

Comments

Re:The Only Change You Can Believe In

[CRCulver]

The little R next to the president's name indicating party changed to a D and some Wikipedia pages were updated.

When it comes to wiretapping, the same status quo was maintained when Bush senior yielded the presidency to Clinton. In fact, Clinton expanded wiretapping for US economic gains, claiming it would "level the playing field." See James Bamford's Body of Secrets .

Nearly all our presidents over the last few decades have pretty much been in agreement that violation of privacy is cool. The exception is Carter, who actually tried hard to limit the intercepts. And old-time NSA employees, military and civilian, despise him for it, because a lot of them get off on unhindered access to communications.

We reject as false

[PMuse]

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)

Clearly, the President is choosing something over our ideals. It's about time that he explained what he's choosing.