Obama and the NSA

While the Obama administration has taken a turn in the (somewhat) right direction by choosing to charge al-Marri in the criminal justice system, they are still going to incredible lengths to defend the NSA domestic surveillance program by denying those who have been subject to surveillance even their day in court. And yes, Greenwald is right to call out the boneheaded commentators who were howling with outrage at the overreaching of the Bush administration, but who seem to believe that it's okay if the Obama administration makes exactly the same arguments and exerts exactly the same degree of executive outrage because "there's much we don't know." That is exactly the damn point. 

I am not reassured at all by the Obama administration's approach on the warrantless wiretapping program, and I am stunned that the DOJ-which is now chock full of people who in recent years wrote one op-ed after another opposing these programs-is now suddenly defending the extreme positions of the Bush administration. If anything, the fact that the Obama administration can defend these programs only makes me even more suspicious. What the hell is going on at the NSA, that a liberal President will make every last argument to defend it?