Obama joins Bush in quashing freedoms

Matthew Rothschild drubs president for wanting to reauthorize Patriot Act provisions --The Progressive

Obama Leaves Bush-Cheney Repressive Apparatus Standing
By Matthew Rothschild, September 21, 2009

Civil libertarians cheered the election of Barack Obama, and with good reason.

Bush and Cheney had trampled all over our rights and liberties.

And as someone who taught constitutional law, Obama denounced the Presidential power grabs and pledged to address them.

But he hasn’t followed through on that pledge.

This week, the Senate is holding a hearing on the reauthorization of some expiring—and troubling--sections of the Patriot Act. The Obama Administration wants to reauthorize them nonetheless.

One of these is Section 215, which allows the FBI to slap National Security Letters on bookstores and libraries and thereby find out who has been checking out or buying which book. This is a violation of our right to privacy and to Free Speech, and Obama should know better.

Obama’s Administration is also making the outrageous claim that it can detain anyone it wants at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and then deny that person all access to due process and habeas corpus.

Nor has Obama made any move to rectify the blatant denial of due process that is embedded in the Military Commissions Act, which allows the President to designate anyone an enemy combatant and jail you. If you’re not a U.S. citizen, he can jail you as an “alien enemy combatant,â€