Candidate Barack Obama promised change and more government transparency. President Barack Obama’s Department of Justice is delivering change for the worse: continuation of the Bush administration’s assertions that the US government can conduct warrantless wiretapping coupled with a new assertion that the government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying under any federal statutes.
In plain language: According to the Obama administration, if the US government spies on you and you do not like it, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot even sue in federal court.
Details in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s article, In Warrantless Wiretapping Case, Obama DOJ’s New Arguments Are Worse Than Bush’s.
Sad as that is, it’s the Department Of Justice’s second argument that is the most pernicious. The DOJ claims that the U.S. Government is completely immune from litigation for illegal spying — that the Government can never be sued for surveillance that violates federal privacy statutes.
This is a radical assertion that is utterly unprecedented. No one — not the White House, not the Justice Department, not any member of Congress, and not the Bush Administration — has ever interpreted the law this way.
Trite though it may sound, it is not safe to assume that “we’re from the government and we’re here to help you” is anything short of misleading. We emperil ourselves if we allow the executive branch to place itself outside the system of checks and balances of the judicial branch.
