Supporting the Obama Agenda in questioning recent Obama administration actions.

Let’s assume that presidential candidate Obama was sincere when he spoke out against the violations of habious corpus at Guantanamo and rendition of individuals to secret prisons. Obama has also been outspoken in favor of transparency. Obama’s agenda represents the political refutation of the excesses of the Bush administration.

I’m glad that President Obama has issued orders to close the Guantanamo prison and the secret, so called black sites. Obama has taken action on transparency for instance issuing orders that FOI request be responded to with as little information withheld as possible.

Recently some positions taken by the Obama administration seem to go against habious corpus and transparency. First is the issue of the Bagram prison in Afganistan. Apparently the administration is now arguing that prisoners can be taken from other countries to Bagram, and be kept there indefinitely without due process. This is a continuation of the Bush Administrations position. A judge has ruled that the same rules that apply to Guantanamo apply to Bagram. Another point of concern is the Obama Department of Justice invoking state secrets and even creating a new term “sovereign immunity” in a case of illegal spying from the Bush Administration. Sovereign immunity virtually dismantles judicial checks on spying from the executive branch. The State Secrets Protection Act, legislation originally written by Clinton and Biden in response to Bush’s evoking of state secrets, has been reintroduced by Senators Russ Feingold, Ted Kennedy, and Pat Leahy.

No doubt the Obama agenda as articulated during his campaign is being challenged by the politics of the office of the presidency. I would like to have a greater insight into the pressures that push the administration away from the agenda. In the meantime supporting the State Secrets Protection Act is something we can do to support the original Obama agenda.