Obama Enrages Civil Libertarians (Again)

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Three reasons why the ACLU must be wondering what the point of changing presidents in January 2009 was:

1. “U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet”

2. “Money Transfers Could Face Anti-Terrorism Scrutiny”

3. “Critics Balk at Obama’s Justification for Killing American Terrorist”

My hunch is that Obama could make an excellent argument against all these positions, and that it pains him to adopt them. But also that he gets constant and chilling briefings about the terror threat and would rather be accused of limiting civil liberties than of having been less than fully vigilant. (The same thinking may well apply to his troop escalation in Afghanistan.) But see Greenwald for the full sturm und drang.