Threats to civil liberties continuing under Obama

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

A visit last week by Janet Napolitano, this nation's third secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, gave me a chance to ask a question that has haunted Americans concerned about preserving the Constitution's guarantee of individual rights ever since the mad rush to ramp up security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At what point, if ever, would this nation begin to restore a balance between security and civil liberties?

Her answers were less than reassuring.

President Obama, the former constitutional scholar who as a presidential candidate had spoken eloquently about the need to respect the rule of law, has made important but decidedly modest strides toward rebalancing civil liberties. Much of George W. Bush's post-9/11 surveillance and security apparatus remains in place.

... Napolitano may be getting rid of the meaningless color-coded threat assessment system - which seemed designed to keep this nation in a perpetual state of unease - but there is little evidence of the magnitude of change suggested by candidate Barack Obama when he pledged to "break the fever of fear that has been exploited by this (Bush) administration."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/01/INBL1J7NKF.DTL