Secrets and power

Yes, this is indeed worrisome and we should hold the Obama administration's feet to the fire. But it was clear during the Bush administration that once the Executive Branch grabs power, it will be tough for future executives to give it up.

Addressing the executive-privilege dispute, Mr. Craig said: “The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened. But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle.”

But Glenn Greenwald sees something a little less suspicious than Charley Savage's article seems to imply.

Having said all of this, and while believing that Savage's article is of great value in sounding the right alarm bells, I think that he paints a slightly more pessimistic picture on the civil liberties front than is warranted by the evidence thus far (though only slightly). Additionally, it is all but certain that media stars and right-wing Bush followers will dishonestly exploit Savage's article to make claims about "vindication of Bush policies" that go far beyond the cautious statements Savage makes.

As Savage notes, there was a flurry of Executive Orders issued by Obama in the first week which are indisputably positive and constitute genuine reversals of some key Bush policies -- banning CIA black sites, guaranteeing International Red Cross access to all detainees (i.e., no more secret detentions), freezing all military commissions, increasing some Executive Branch restrictions on presidential secrecy powers, substantially limiting the interrogation techniques which (at least for now) the CIA is authorized to employ. All of those orders were, by design, preliminary, incomplete and reversible -- and their value is therefore limited -- but they were clearly important steps in the right direction.

Still, though, vigilance is vital here.

And it will be interesting to see what the Obama administration does about these poor bastards now that the courts have thrown it back into the presidents...um...court.