Legal Commentary

Will Obama Continue Bush Block Of Wiretapping Cases?

By Big Tent Democrat

Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, who broke the warrantless wiretapping story for the NYTimes (and justly earned the Pulitzer Prize), raise an important question:

President-elect Barack Obama will face a series of early decisions on domestic spying that will test his administration’s views on presidential power and civil liberties. The Justice Department will be asked to respond to motions in legal challenges to the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, and must decide whether to continue the tactics used by the Bush administration — which has used broad claims of national security and “state secrets” to try to derail the challenges — or instead agree to disclose publicly more information about how the program was run.

More . . .

This is why John Brennan is an issue:

When he takes office, Mr. Obama will inherit greater power in domestic spying power than any other new president in more than 30 years, but he may find himself in an awkward position as he weighs how to wield it. As a presidential candidate, he condemned the N.S.A. operation as illegal, and threatened to filibuster a bill that would grant the government expanded surveillance powers and provide immunity to phone companies that helped in the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants. But Mr. Obama switched positions and ultimately supported the measure in the Senate, angering liberal supporters who accused him of bowing to pressure from the right.

Advisers to Mr. Obama appear divided over whether he should push forcefully to investigate the operations of the wiretapping program, which was run in secret from September 2001 until December 2005.

Where do you think John Brennan stands on it? Talk about a conflict of interest. But no breathless Josh Marshall posts about THAT.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 18, 2008 (boomark / email).