Illegal wiretaps + President Obama = What are they thinking?

By GottaLaff

Via BuzzFlash, an excellent summary of something that has really gotten under my skin:

Illegal wiretapping cases could spell trouble for President Obama. What can the Obama Administration be thinking?

At the Obama presidential campaign website, barackobama.com, a page titled "Plan to Change Washington" describes problems in government and then presents "The Obama/Biden Plan" to correct such problems. Here's the section on the problem of government secrecy:

Secrecy Dominates Government Actions: The Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a legal tool known as the "state secrets" privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.

But then in the section on Obama's planned solutions, the state-secrets legal tool doesn't come up again. Was that an oversight or a deliberate omission? Was there actually no Obama/Biden plan to challenge or curtail the state-secrets claim that the Bush administration used so often? It seems so.[...]

To summarize, the DOJ wants to allow the NSA to keep doing unrestricted electronic surveillance; the DOJ wants to keep the NSA's secret documents from being used in court; and they want the Jewel v. NSA case thrown out. The EFF wants Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable invasion of privacy upheld for American citizens. They want the case to be heard. They seek to stop what they call the government's "iillegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance ... of millions of Americans." As Ken Bankston told BuzzFlash, the EFF "believes and alleges" that the NSA is viewing and analyzing the transactional information, but also the contents, of "practically everyone's" emails and phone calls illegally. And the "wholesale surveillance" continues on President Barack Obama's watch. [...]

[B]ut what of the political side to this story? Many Obama supporters are losing faith. [...]

Will President Obama be able to restore that loss of faith, or even try? Doesn't he realize his base is boiling mad about domestic spying and warrantless wiretaps? The disconnect between campaign rhetoric and courtroom maneuvering is a problem the President must confront -- on this issue as well as on others.

Domestic spying is not a progressive value, or even a centrist or conservative value. It's a breach of the inalienable 4th Amendment rights of all Americans.

Please go read the post in full. This is the one Obama administration position that not only greatly concerns me, it's one that I would actively campaign against. I need a talking down, A.S.A.P.