Obama Administration: New State Secrets Rules = Really, You Can Trust Us

from the uh... dept

So, we keep seeing more of what the promised "transparency" of the Obama administration means in real terms. Despite campaigning against warrantless wiretapping, the administration has come out with new rules for how it will use the "state secrets" privilege that amount to "no, really, we'll only use it when we need to... just trust us" and continued to insist that evidence over warrantless wiretapping should be tossed out for state secrets reasons. And it's left up to a former comedian, now politician to remind the Justice Department of the Fourth Amendment? The "just trust us, we won't abuse the system" justification isn't particularly comforting, especially when that clause is being used to cover up what is almost certainly illegal activity by the federal government.

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Sen. Arlen Specter Demands Investigation of Spying... In The NFL

from the priorities dept

Sometimes, no amount of snark can top the real world. Threat Level notes that "Arlen Specter, the Republican leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday demanded an independent investigation into 'Spygate.'" Not the administration's various warrantless eavesdropping programs, but allegations that the New England Patriots have been secretly recording the signals of opposing teams. Because, of course, Congress has nothing more important to worry about than cheating in football. This is particularly galling when juxtaposed with reports that the administration has unveiled (sort of) a "cyber-security" proposal that includes expanded spying on the Internet. That is something that could use more scrutiny from Congress. Indeed, because the Bush administration has shrouded details of its surveillance programs in secrecy, Congress has a unique role in investigating the proposal and exposing any aspects that could violate civil liberties. And the Ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee would be a big help in those efforts. But unfortunately, the threat of expanded spying in the NFL is such a serious problem that Sen. Specter doesn't seem to have much time to investigate spying programs that affect those of us who don't play football for a living.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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