The New Normal

Dear Friends,

Last week President Obama again showed his inclination to ignore the Constitution and follow the policies of President George W. Bush.  President Obama is seeking legislation that makes it clear that the FBI can force disclosure of email and other internet based communications from internet service providers without a court order.  The New York Times article on the subject (here) includes the following sentence, "Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday that the proposal raised 'serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.'”

On the heels of that disclosure, the American Civil Liberties Union published their report entitled "Establishing a New Normal: National Security, Civil Liberties, and Human Rights Under the Obama Administration" (here).  While there is nothing new in the report, it presents the case that by continuing and expanding many of President George W. Bush's worst policies, President Obama is creating a new normal and enshrining these terrible policies as acceptable.  Please take the time to read the entire report.  It is well worth it.

The press release issued by the ACLU concerning the report contains a summary of some of the findings.
The first sentence of the press release says, "The Obama administration has repudiated some of the Bush administration's most egregious national security policies but is in danger of institutionalizing others permanently into law, thereby creating a troubling 'new normal,'".

The press release summarizes the report's conclusions as follows:

the current administration's record on issues of national security and civil liberties is decidedly mixed: President Obama has made great strides in some areas, such as his auspicious first steps to categorically prohibit torture, outlaw the CIA's use of secret overseas detention sites and release the Bush administration's torture memos, but he has failed to eliminate some of the worst policies put in place by President Bush, such as military commissions and indefinite detention. He has also expanded the Bush administration's "targeted killing" program.

The press release continues:

The report concludes that, in addition to the initial executive orders, the administration has taken other positive steps and made genuine progress in some areas such as improvements to the government's handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, the release of key documents related to the U.S. torture program and an executive order disavowing torture. It also addresses more troubling practices such as the use of the "state secrets" doctrine to block lawsuits brought by torture survivors, the revival of the discredited military commissions to prosecute some Guantánamo detainees, the assertion of broad surveillance powers and the authorization of a "targeted killing" program to kill terrorism suspects, including American citizens, wherever they are located, without due process.
"In its first days, the Obama administration took some important steps to restore civil liberties and the rule of law," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. "It has not, however, abandoned the 'global war' framework that was the basis for many of the last administration's counterterrorism programs. Indeed, some of the Obama administration's policies – like the policies on indefinite detention, military commissions and targeted killings – are entrenching this framework, presenting a profound threat to human rights and the rule of law. We urge the Obama administration to recommit itself to the ideals it articulated in its very first days. President Obama should not make 'global war' the new normal."

While discussing this report with one of my sons, he suggested that I read an article in the most recent issue of the Wilder Voice by John Cheng entitled "A Few Not-So-Good Men".  The Wilder Voice describes itself as Oberlin College's "magazine for creative nonfiction and long-form journalism".  It is a great magazine.  You should read it.  The issues for the last several years are archived online at the website of the Wilder Voice here.

In his article Mr. Cheng points out the dual system of justice that was established under President George W. Bush and is being continued by President Obama.  One system is our criminal justice system, and the other is the system for handling anybody deemed by the President to be a terrorist.  Needless to say in the latter system our Constitution and laws as well as international treaties and laws are ignored and deemed not to apply.  Under that system, the President has the authority to decide when to apply the Constitution and laws.

Mr. Cheng writes,

President Obama refrains from calling the U.S.’s collective military engagements—not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen—a “war on terror.” But the administrations of both the 43rd and 44th presidents of the United States share the same counterterrorism paradigm, whereby war is an appropriate means of combating terrorism, replacing a law enforcement strategy and the civilian judicial institutions that underpin it. Instead of recognizing 9/11 as a horrific criminal deed, the United States has cast the national tragedy as an act of war.
Making war upon and within entire nation-states for harboring Al-Qaeda, rather than merely seeking to capture Al-Qaeda members responsible for the 9/11 attacks, necessitates herculean objectives: Invasion, occupation, and nation-building. Muddying the boundaries between military and judicial prerogatives, the United States has dispatched the machinery of war to execute what, in some respects, might appear to be a law enforcement mission: Conducting raids and catching terror suspects, all under the umbrella of post-invasion occupation and nation-building. That same government then circumscribes due legal process once those individuals are in custody. Furthermore, in an attempt to rationalize the brutal behavior of U.S. soldiers and intelligence officers toward detainees, the Bush administration concocted warped reinterpretations of international law.

Unfortunately, as the ACLU report indicates, the Obama Administration also seems inclined to use some warped reinterpretations of our Constitution and laws.

While I have written about many of the ways that President Obama has continued and in some cases expanded some of the worst policies of the Bush Administration, the framework of the ACLU report provides me with the basis for a series of posts on this subject.  This series will start as soon as I can write the first installment of the series.  We cannot let these terrible policies become the "new normal".

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal