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Obama and the Decline of the American Civil Liberties Movement

Below is today’s column in The Los Angeles Times on the record of Barack Obama on civil liberties and his impact on the civil liberties movement in the United States.

OBAMA: A DISASTER FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

With the 2012 presidential election before us, the country is again caught up in debating national security issues, our ongoing wars and the threat of terrorism. There is one related subject, however, that is rarely mentioned: civil liberties.

Protecting individual rights and liberties — apart from the right to be tax-free — seems barely relevant to candidates or voters. One man is primarily responsible for the disappearance of civil liberties from the national debate, and he is Barack Obama. While many are reluctant to admit it, Obama has proved a disaster not just for specific civil liberties but the civil liberties cause in the United States.

Civil libertarians have long had a dysfunctional relationship with the Democratic Party, which treats them as a captive voting bloc with nowhere else to turn in elections. Not even this history, however, prepared civil libertarians for Obama. After the George W. Bush years, they were ready to fight to regain ground lost after Sept. 11. Historically, this country has tended to correct periods of heightened police powers with a pendulum swing back toward greater individual rights. Many were questioning the extreme measures taken by the Bush administration, especially after the disclosure of abuses and illegalities. Candidate Obama capitalized on this swing and portrayed himself as the champion of civil liberties.

However, President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them. The earliest, and most startling, move came quickly. Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture. In his first year, Obama made good on that promise, announcing that no CIA employee would be prosecuted for torture. Later, his administration refused to prosecute any of the Bush officials responsible for ordering or justifying the program and embraced the “just following orders” defense for other officials, the very defense rejected by the United States at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

Obama failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised. He continued warrantless surveillance and military tribunals that denied defendants basic rights. He asserted the right to kill U.S. citizens he views as terrorists. His administration has fought to block dozens of public-interest lawsuits challenging privacy violations and presidential abuses.

But perhaps the biggest blow to civil liberties is what he has done to the movement itself. It has quieted to a whisper, muted by the power of Obama’s personality and his symbolic importance as the first black president as well as the liberal who replaced Bush. Indeed, only a few days after he took office, the Nobel committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize without his having a single accomplishment to his credit beyond being elected. Many Democrats were, and remain, enraptured.

It’s almost a classic case of the Stockholm syndrome, in which a hostage bonds with his captor despite the obvious threat to his existence. Even though many Democrats admit in private that they are shocked by Obama’s position on civil liberties, they are incapable of opposing him. Some insist that they are simply motivated by realism: A Republican would be worse. However, realism alone cannot explain the utter absence of a push for an alternative Democratic candidate or organized opposition to Obama’s policies on civil liberties in Congress during his term. It looks more like a cult of personality. Obama’s policies have become secondary to his persona.

Ironically, had Obama been defeated in 2008, it is likely that an alliance for civil liberties might have coalesced and effectively fought the government’s burgeoning police powers. A Gallup poll released this week shows 49% of Americans, a record since the poll began asking this question in 2003, believe that “the federal government poses an immediate threat to individuals’ rights and freedoms.” Yet the Obama administration long ago made a cynical calculation that it already had such voters in the bag and tacked to the right on this issue to show Obama was not “soft” on terror. He assumed that, yet again, civil libertarians might grumble and gripe but, come election day, they would not dare stay home.

This calculation may be wrong. Obama may have flown by the fail-safe line, especially when it comes to waterboarding. For many civil libertarians, it will be virtually impossible to vote for someone who has flagrantly ignored the Convention Against Torture or its underlying Nuremberg Principles. As Obama and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. have admitted, waterboarding is clearly torture and has been long defined as such by both international and U.S. courts. It is not only a crime but a war crime. By blocking the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for torture, Obama violated international law and reinforced other countries in refusing investigation of their own alleged war crimes. The administration magnified the damage by blocking efforts of other countries like Spain from investigating our alleged war crimes. In this process, his administration shredded principles on the accountability of government officials and lawyers facilitating war crimes and further destroyed the credibility of the U.S. in objecting to civil liberties abuses abroad.

In time, the election of Barack Obama may stand as one of the single most devastating events in our history for civil liberties. Now the president has begun campaigning for a second term. He will again be selling himself more than his policies, but he is likely to find many civil libertarians who simply are not buying.

Jonathan Turley is a professor of law at George Washington University.

The Los Angeles Times
September 29, 2011

210 thoughts on “Obama and the Decline of the American Civil Liberties Movement”

  5. Swathmore Mum and all who think voting Democrat is the lesser of two evils.

    Please read this article at Black Agenda Report entitled “Barak Obama Versus Those Craaaazy Republicans: Is He the Lesser Evil, or the More Effective Evil”.

    The article makes a good case for the proposition that Obama and the Democrats can getaway with many anti-civil liberties polices without being criticised by the loyal liberal base.

    In any case politicians who have treated their supporters with such contempt will not consider this an error until the election when the jilted supporters withhold their votes. this may already have happened in 2010.

  6. Obama should be tried for murder and then impeached. We dont need to do it in the Haig, we can do it right here in DC.

    I guess this is what happens when you allow waterboarding to go unanswered. I wonder who is next?

    Buddha is Laughing wherever you are, watch your back.

  12. Friday, Sep 30, 2011 06:31 ET

    The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality
    By Glenn Greenwald

    http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/30/awlaki/index.html

    “From an authoritarian perspective, that’s the genius of America’s political culture. It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.”

    (And our government has dispensed with due process here in the U.S., as well. Many just don’t realize it yet.)

  14. Puzzling…..

    Yes. You are correct….However, if you will look at the link provided…I think it is dated April 29….now if my suspicions are correct…There is something going on about this device and MSM may occasionally run an old story…without updates to alert the public…and feel like they are doing their job….There are some decent journalist still out there….Think about it…

  15. Gebba Gebba,..”how did it happen that females have dominated the “Human Resources” profession by overwhelming numbers”
    ——–
    Because it’s a handmaiden position. All those women scrambling for those MBA’s hadn’t a clue, got sold a bill of goods. That’s not where the money is. The money is in the line management chain of command, and sales. The money is the the department head of production. Human Resources? The implement the policies that are decided by the owners and production heads.

    Owner: ‘I want more widgets and profits, can you do that?’

    Production department heads: ‘We can do that bu then we need more widget makers and some new machines and a way to get more work out of the widget makers, and I’ll need a raise.’

    Owner: ‘Yo, human resources girly-girl, hire more widget makers and see if we can take the peasants break away from them.’

    That’s how it goes. That’s the real chain of command. Human Resource’s chiefs and assistant chiefs, they’re the first people to be laid off when there are belts to tighten. Non-essential personnel.

    ———————–

    “HR hiring practices within that business function have a demonstrable disparate impact on males – imho”
    ——–

    You bet they do. Gee, one of us is wrong. But I know where the money is and you don’t so a betting man would put his money on which one of us I wonder?

  18. Nothing gets better unless progressives manage to elect a Democratic Congress and kill the filibuster rule. Obama’s style is to lead from behind, and he can’t or won’t push for a progressive agenda unless there’s a wind at his back.

    TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!

  19. hey swarthy swathmore hon,
    So the Republicans are waging a war on at least 50% of the voting population – women. So how did the dems get such a rear kicking in the mid-terms? And how much of a % of the ladies voted the Rep way? Please reflect on this and consider that either your assertions are erroneous OR that the gals (other than you I assume) just don’t know what they are doing. I think that your views might be a little off the mark in this case. then again, I guess I’m one of the guilty parties “waging war” on your gender so what do I know? Still respect your opinion and your right to express it.

    And just how did it happen that females have dominated the “Human Resources” profession by overwhelming numbers? Perhaps a little gender war going on in the workplace? HR hiring practices within that business function have a demonstrable disparate impact on males – imho. And since females dominate this function isn’t it fair to assert that said females are responsible for some unfair hiring policies perpetrated by companies who boldly state “unemployed people need not apply”? Since plus 40 aged males have been affected by layoffs more than other groups – doesn’t this show disparate impact upon them? I mean – you people are a bunch of cougars!

  20. AY,

    Theft of information from cell phones by government was also discussed on an earlier thread, here.

    I expect to see these devices universally deployed by US Customs and eventually at TSA checkpoints.

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