Obama Surveillence Defies Campaign Civil Liberty Pledge
By Julie Hirschfeld Davis - Jun 7, 2013 12:00 AM ET
The news that Barack Obama continued the Bush administration’s domestic telephone surveillance program is sparking new doubts about a president who campaigned as a champion of civil liberties and greater transparency.
“It’s remarkable that the man who rode his way to the presidency by suggesting George Bush’s anti-terrorism policies violated the Constitution is emulating those policies himself,” said Ari Fleischer, the former president’s press secretary. “It’s as if George Bush had gotten a fourth term.”
Former Vice President Al Gore took to Twitter to say: “Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?”
The reactions were prompted by a report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation got a secret court order telling U.S.- based Verizon Communications Inc (VZ). to furnish the National Security Agency with data about domestic calls and those between the U.S. and other countries.
The disclosure, first made by the British newspaper the Guardian, sent the White House into damage-control mode once again, burying Obama’s education message at a North Carolina event. It also risked further undermining public confidence in his administration at a time when Obama is pressing for a revision of immigration laws that puts the government in charge of securing the border and creating a new program to enroll undocumented immigrants already here.
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-07/obama-surveillence-defies-campaign-civil-liberty-pledge.html
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