I don't get it. Not one bit. Obama is abandoning his campaign promises, and even more quickly and wrecklessly than most sneaky politicians. Almost invites conspiracy theories who really controls the government and whether it even matters who is in charge anymore - the results keep coming up as bad news for democracy. This is beyond disappointing. Am I naive to believe we have ever really been free or is govenment secrecy and power without accountability just the way all governments work, simply to greater and lesser degrees?

Another fine post; keep up the good work.

The problem is that a society does not go from transparency to what we have now in just a few years. (baring armed coup) It takes decades of encroachment by government to reach this stage.

The answer is to demand that there be no secrets at all concerning actions taken by the government. It times of armed conflict, we would waive that for a few short years and no more.

It is allowing secrecy in a democracy that is the real problem --- how can the people run he government if all important information is hidden from sight?

Wow, is this a Bill already or does it still have to go through the House and the Kabuki Theatre of Pelosi being "outraged" and then passing it? (ala FISA part II). I knew the case in California was promising sanctions, but when did the Government seize the evidence back? I know they were threatening to, awhile back. Combine all this will mandatory Passports to leave this Country period now and it's not looking good at all.

Murder even happens on bright sunny days in spring- I guess this is how it starts with our Liberty- BIG TIME. I sure would like to see someone spin this with an optimistic outcome, if for nothing more than to allow me to briefly imagine we still live in a democracy.

How do you suppose they can explain this to the rest of the entire planet? Amazing and deeply disturbing.

I mean, Obama campaigned on reaching out to the other side. Who better than those "centrist", "moderate" members of the Senate such as Lieberman and Graham to work "across the aisle" on matters they can agree upon. This is going to make David Broder very happy.

I suppose the one minor change from Bush is that Obama is not claiming this power as executive privilege but is getting Congress to do the dirty work.

Probably the best place to stop this is in the House? I think the Senate is a hopeless case for progressives.

I meant to ask is this a LAW already.

After all, Scott Roeder is a good Christian and only trying to prevent the murder of babies. I'm sure Graham, Lieberman, and Evan Bayh can come up with a good amendment to the Patriot Act to shield him from enforcement of the law.

Wow, is this a Bill already or does it still have to go through the House and the Kabuki Theatre of Pelosi being "outraged" and then passing it?

The House version doesn't have this provision, but it's expected that it will be added to the final bill in Conference and then sent to the White House.

What's amazing is that when it comes to executive power expansions, the Congress-- which in theory is supposed to check those expansions -- is an even more reliable supporter of them than the Executive.

"Support the Troops". How to win over the South: support the troops. How to tack to the center: support the troops. How to win re-election: support the troops. How to piss off the crazy lefties (like me): support the troops. Support the troops at all cost, democracy be damned.

In the 1980's when the PC industry mushroomed with dozens of competing computer makers, the corporate mantra then was 'no manager ever got fired for buying IBM' at twice the price.

In our politics today, Obama will never get fired for supporting the troops, but the cost is democracy itself. Obama is an epic fail.

And should be treated as such.

We are still reeling from 8 years of a president who largely ignored pragmatism and was ruled by ideology.

We replaced him with a president who largely ignores ideology and is ruled by pragmatism.

And yet, the second's behavior in office is disturbingly similar to his predecessor--at least in this area of ever-expanding executive power.

Why and how can that be?

There used to be a time where the right wing would be raising all kinds of hell over such an outrageous act such as this, but I guarandamntee you that Redstate (etc) will tout this as a good thing and give Barack a left handed compliment for "keeping our country safe". There's been a few times in the past where both parties had some common ground for outrage (eg. TARP), but in their present "cut my nose off to spite my fucking face" mode, they're gonna praise this just to rub salt into the left's furious indignation. The circus has come to town. Maddening.

At this point I think one can fairly say that Obama outright lied to the American public during his campaign. As you have documented multiple times, Obama has not only reversed himself in opposing Bush policies, he is now actively going beyond them.

Obama's campaign promises were not vague, nor were they unreasoned. Are we to believe he is too weak to carry through? I couldn’t credit that. Obama is not lacking political support – Congress seems to follow him wherever he decides to go. The law would be on his side were he to carry through on this campaign promises. So why is this reversal and cover-up happening at the speed of light? Why? What is going on??????

Contrary to your own assessment of Obama's civil liberties speech in your article of May 21st that it has "a positive impact on our debate and contained some welcome and rare arguments from a high-level political leader" (even though it contradicts Obama's own actions), I see Obama's fine words as an insidious facade to blind people to the fact of what is really going on, namely the dismantling of the house behind it - our democracy and the rule of law.