Constitutional Law

The War on Terror: More of The Same?

White House counsel Gregory Craig defended a string of recent administration actions on counterterrorism policy that has left some civil liberties groups wondering if whether President Obama is reconsidering some of his lofty campaign rhetoric to break sharply with Bush policies. Although Obama has signaled a shift away from the use of harsh interrogations of military detainees and toward closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, his administration has left open the possibility of using renditions, which entail sending terrorism suspects to other countries for interrogation, and has already used the “state secrets” privilege in a federal case involving the handling of a terrorism suspect.

Craig (right) insisted that the administration’s actions were not a continuation of Bush policy, telling The Times that, “We are charting a new way forward, taking into account both the security of the American people and the need to obey the rule of law. That is the message we would give to the civil liberties people as well as to the Bush people.”

The Times noted a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that lauded the Obama administration for giving a stamp-of-approval of sorts to Bush era policy. The WSJ editorial maintained that, “it seems that the Bush administration’s antiterror architecture is gaining new legitimacy.” Meanwhile, an increasing number of civil liberties groups are showing frustration with the Obama administration. Margaret Satterthwaite of the New York University law school’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice told The Times that the Obama administration’s recent use of the state secrets privilege in a federal lawsuit brought by a former CIA detainee was “literally just Bush redux – exactly the same legal arguments that we saw the Bush administration present to the court.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on February 18, 2009 (boomark / email).