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Showing Original Post only (View all)Obama Continues the Bush Policies of Secrecy [View all]
Some of us naively thought during the terrible Bush decade that we could replace the heavy handed Security State of the Republican administration by electing a Democratic president and that we could reestablish our tattered democracy. In hindsight how foolish we were. We thought that Obama, who campaigned on government transparency and rolling back the Patriot Act would end the dominating control of the most powerful NSA/CIA Security State made strong by 8 years of zero oversight and an unlimited budget. We were wrong. How could we think that those in power would relinquish that power just because a new president was inaugurated? Sadly, some here in DU think thats exactly what happened in spite of the evidence otherwise.
In The Nation magazine of Oct 27, there is a good article, The Governments War on Whistleblowers.
As bad as that sounds, that is the tip of the iceberg. Many others have undergone Espionage Act investigations that didnt result in prosecutions, but most likely destroyed careers. Some see this as heavy-handed intimidation.
The article goes on to detail how Obamas DOJ used subpoenas to gather records of 100 journalists exposing their sources whether or not the sources were relevant to the justification for the subpoenas. This is more heavy handed intimidation.
It is apparent that our powerful NSA/CIA Security State, via the DOJ, has declared war on whisleblowers and investigative journalists.
When Obama became president he inherited a very powerful Security State from the Bush/Cheney administration that operated with an unlimited budget, carte blache authority and zero oversight. It appears that Security State has grown even more powerful under President Obama. This threat to our democracy should be obvious to all but those living in a state of denial. And those that applaud the president for the gains weve made must realize that without democracy those gains can disappear quickly.