ACLU Report On Obama & Civil Liberties: Worse Than Bush

Anyone surprised.

---

Here's the report from the ACLU:

A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Civil Liberties

An ACLU report release to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 warns that a decade after the attacks, the United States is at risk of enshrining a permanent state of emergency in which core values must be subordinated to ever-expanding claims of national security.

Everywhere And Forever War

The report begins with an examination of the contention that the U.S. is engaged in a "war on terror" that takes place everywhere and will last forever, and that therefore counterterrorism measures cannot be balanced against any other considerations such as maintaining civil liberties. The report states that the United States has become an international legal outlier in invoking the right to use lethal force and indefinite military detention outside battle zones, and that these policies have hampered the international fight against terrorism by straining relations with allies and handing a propaganda tool to enemies.

By Glenn Greenwald

Salon

The ACLU decided to use the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack to comprehensively survey the severe erosion of civil liberties justified in the name of that event, an erosion that -- as it documents -- continues unabated, indeed often in accelerated form, under the Obama administration.  The group today is issuing a report entitled: A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Liberties Ten Years After 9/11; that title is intended to underscore the irony that political leaders who prance around as courageous warriors against Terrorism in fact rely on one primary weapon -- fear-mongering: the absence of courage -- to vest the government with ever-more power and the citizenry with ever-fewer rights.  Domestically, the "War on Terror" has been, and continues to be, a war on basic political liberties more than it is anything else.  The particulars identified in this new ACLU report will not be even remotely new to any readers here, but given the organization's status among progressives as the preeminent rights-defending group in the country, and given the bird's-eye-view the report takes of these issues, it is well worth highlighting some of its key findings.

Let's begin with the ACLU's summary assessment of what President Obama has done with regard to these matters:

Continue reading...

---

Cenk on Obama and civil liberties.

Related:

• Obama Has Finally Become Dick Cheney

• George Carlin On Terrorism & Airport Security

Comments

[ain't bullshitt'n]

Perfect photo OP...azzhat in Chief....AB

[Cheyenne]

That deflating whoopie cushion now defining O's legacy, as well as Barack's clownish performance, is but a distraction from the One True Menace, Ben Bernanke, the head and dickhead of the Federal Reserve. This guy is real life menace, and you'd better be prepared for the logical conclusion as to how this maniac's insanity will end.

But first let's ask the obvious. Let's suppose the people who think our problem is structural, meaning that a single fix in one direction is necessary to reverse course are right. Which means the people who think the problem is merely cyclical--"fuck it, it'll come back like always"--are wrong. If that's the case...

If you think the Depression we’re in now won’t get WAY worse than the so-called “Great” depression? Guess again.

Back then, most people lived close to food supplies, the population was agrarian.

No more. Now most people live in big cities, which are real far away from their food supplies—when you gotta walk that route.

How many bottlenecks are there like that when electricity is out for longer than you ever remember? (WAY longer.)

Riddle me this. What trick have you seen Bernanke decline to use? This is not a reasonable man. His pattern of doing insane and surprising things over and over will continue. What sign have you seen to indicate a point at which he’ll stop? Could someone please draw Bernanke’s line in the sand and tell me where it is?

Or am I right in thinking that Bernanke is a monster with neither limit nor restraint?

[DailyBail]

How many bottlenecks are there like that when electricity is out for longer than you ever remember?

---

If the sheeples' cable goes out, all bets are off.

[DailyBail]

You'd better be prepared for the logical conclusion as to how this maniac's insanity will end.

---

It might not end for awhile if the GOP doesn't get someone to defeat the Ogolfer.

[DailyBail]

Riddle me this. What trick have you seen Bernanke decline to use?

---

'Dropping trou' and mooning monthly unemployment claims...

[Cheyenne]

Bernanke moons every American each time he makes another guaranteed-to-be-wrong prediction. Oh, He of Always-Increasing-House-Prices: deny thy father (Mr. Lloyd B.) and refuse thy name (banker ball wax).

What order would Bernanke refuse to carry out for his masters? HIde your undocumented printing? Tell folks you have no idea why gold's on a tear? Destroy evidence? Kill?

I honestly wonder.

[peter]

i'd like to know what would happen if all citizens of the united states will go to their banks and withdraw all the money they have deposited at once?

[Sagebrush]

They'd shut down the banks as soon as the run started. Then after Congress made it a crime to empty your account, unless it was going to another bank, they'd open back up and get back to screwing the middle class.
You know! Business as usual.

[Dave]

New San Francisco bridge built in China to be shipped to US
First, China made cut-price clothes and knick-knacks. Then it learned how to make mobile phones and iPads. Now it is making a 2,050ft-long bridge spanning the San Francisco bay

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8602786/New-San-Francisco-bridge-built-in-China-to-be-shipped-to-US.html

[KingofthePaupers]

Jct: It doesn't matter what puppet is wearing the strings, they're dancing to the tune of the Big Money back-room boys either way.