Sovereign Immunity??? Really?

I’m an Obama fan. People who know me – and I know of no one who reads this blog who doesn’t know me directly – are aware of this.

And I’m very happy with what President Obama has done in the 85 days of his first 100 days in office. I have high hopes for the next 2 weeks and the next 4 (and possibly 8) years.

Specifically I’m thrilled that President Obama has:

• Begun the process of shutting down Gitmo as a detention center
• Effectively banned torture by directing that the Army Field Manual be used as the rules for interrogation
• Raised fuel efficiency standards
• Allowed states to raise fuel efficiency standards higher still
• Ended the Global Gag Rule on abortion
• Signed legislation that will insure 4 million previously uninsured children
• Lifted restrictions on stem cell research
• Effectively reinstituted a Reagan-issued Executive Order that sees to the archiving of presidential papers
  

This last item is a step forward (after a Bush 43 step back) in governmental transparency.

Transparency was one of candidate Obama’s big campaign issues. It’s probably something he’s not going to want to bring up for a while, though.

I’ve written previously (in my last few blog entries) about this one area - transparency - in which I am disappointed in President Obama.

Well, it’s gotten worse.

Previously, President Obama’s Department of Justice has continued many of the previous administration’s legal claims to secrecy. The previous administration had a very impressive record of secrecy, so this is not a good thing.

Well, now the Department of Justice has taken things to the next level. Now they’re claiming a right of “sovereign immunity” under the Patriot Act. Basically, they’re claiming that the state has the right to spy on its citizens so long as the state doesn’t release the information gathered in this process to the public.

Say what you will about the second Bush administration – and I’ve said a lot – but they never went quite this far.

In my naiveté I am looking forward to an about-face on this issue from the Obama administration. Until that happens, though, then I’m going to be linking to the various sources of information on this:

Here’s Politico.com’s article
Here’s Salon.com’s.
Here’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s.
And here’s the Atlantic’s.