Obama's State Secrets Slipup Means We Need to Be Louder

Since this morning, when I heard about Obama's move to derail an court's investigation of extraordinary rendition under the Bush administration, I've been moving through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. I've gone through through denial and anger, and I've just started working my way over to bargaining.

The Department of Justice under Bush tried to dismiss the case in question (Mohamed, et al. v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc) on the grounds that merely discussing in a court of law the acts of extraordinary rendition that Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen is said to have facilitated poses an intolerable threat to national security. Obama's rhetoric during the campaign led me to believe that this kind of argument would be rejected in his new, transparent administration. So when the New York Times reported today that Obama's lawyers are still pushing to have the case thrown out of court, I was shocked.

One of the judges was just as incredulous, asking "Is there anything material that has happened [to change the position of the Justice Department]?" and, unable to let the matter rest, following up with "The change in administration has no bearing? " I couldn't imagine what it was like to sit on the bench in that courtroom, trying to stay composed when I was shaking with anger over breakfast. I felt a sense of personal betrayal.

In June of 2007, I was one of 50 Presidential Scholars to sign and deliver a letter personally to George W. Bush, asking him to end the practices of torture and extraordinary rendition. The then president looked me in the eye and said "America doesn't torture" giving me the distinction of having been lied to personally by our former president, instead of just through his media distortions.

When I read today's Times story, I felt sick. Obama's election was supposed to mean the chance for a clean, visible break with the travesties of human rights abuses of the last eight years. I wanted to echo ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero, who said in a statement "This is not change. This is definitely more of the same." I didn't understand how President Obama could repeat these mistakes.

Obama let me down today, but I let him down first. I got lazy, embracing a message of hope while neglecting the work and sacrifice that is required to sustain that hope. After denigrating Bush as a feckless shirker of responsibility, I fell prey to the same error, willing to cede responsibility to my president, instead of remembering that my job didn't end on November 4th in the polling place.

What I voted for when I voted for Obama was the potential for change, not a guarantee. Although I still feel confident that Obama is aware of the dangers of these policies, no politician is good enough to be trusted to act justly without constant lobbying and pressure from activists nationwide. Our voices must ring out just as loudly in Washington D.C. in January as they did in Ohio and Florida in November, particularly as the debate over responses to the economic crisis threatens to drown out our calls for reform, and a focus on the legislative agenda creates the temptation to put these critical issues on the back-burner in the interests of making a cloture deal.

I shouldn't have been so surprised about the magnitude of the fight that lies ahead of us. Earlier this week, I wore my ACLU shirt reading Close Guantanamo for what I thought might be the last time, but the conversations it sparked convinced me otherwise. I was repeatedly asked by my classmates "Why are you wearing that shirt? Obama closed Guantanamo. It's finally over."

It's true that Obama has signed an executive order expressing his commitment to closing Guantanamo Bay within the year, and I'm delighted, but that still leaves us a long way from actually answering Guantanamo's hard questions: Where will former prisoners go? How will we differentiate between prisoners who have already been complicit in attacks, prisoners who may pose a threat in the future, and prisoners who are entirely innocent? Is it even still possible to set up a trial system for the dangerous prisoners?

Bush's policies have done lasting damage to America's image and to its moral integrity. The systematic changes and abuses that he and his administration instituted are still wreaking destruction and still must be actively opposed and rooted out. Obama will fail to undo the harm still being done by the Bush administration if we accept simply not actively doing wrong as sufficient. Passive neglect of ongoing abuses is unacceptable.

To engage in the self-deception and denial required to believe that Obama can or will correct these hidden perversions of justice without action from me and other likeminded citizens is not possible. The anger I feel is justified, but is only useful insofar as I use it as a reminder of the need to remain engaged, and of the consequences if I fail. As Obama's presidency goes on, I need to commit to lobbying, arguing, and bargaining to make sure that cases like Mohamed, et al. v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc don't escape public scrutiny, and I can't give into depression and despair when Obama doesn't consistently work miracles.

Because one thing is for sure: the stakes of this fight are too high for us to end up at acceptance.

Comments

[DrPneumann]

Its a shame that even the Huffington Post is treating this story at a distance instead of running a FRONT PAGE HEADLINE about the "new" administration's FAILURE.

I guess if you spent so much time singing the praises of "change" it would be difficult to revert to printing the TRUTH.

[amistad]

I find it amusing that you and the reporter in this article are so much smarter than President Obama.
If you can run this country, you should be doing so.
Obama has alot on his plate right now, has been in office for 3 weeks now, and the economy is in a shambles.
The TRUTH of the matter is: Obama's Administration is more TRANSPARENT than Bush or any other Administration for that fact.
Trash President Obama all you like. The TRUTH of the matter is: you are not President, are not smart enough to become President, don't know all of what President Obama is dealing with, and what he is going to do.
Next.

[OkramV]

Hello? If you have to be smarter than President Obama to leave a comment here (or criticize his administration's actions), there wouldn't be very many (and sadly, there aren't many on this piece).

So your argument is that because the Obama Administration is more transparent than Bush's (hard to see how it could be less), and we don't know what the President is dealing with at the moment, we should give him a pass on what strikes us as a horribly misguided and wrongheaded move. Tell that to the five people, several of them sitting in Guantanamo, who are trying to get their day in court. Besides, we are a nation of laws, not of men. It's not good enough to say that we can tolerate abuse of state secrets defense because we now have a President who we figure won't abuse it as badly as his predecessor.

Candidate Obama was very clear that he would oppose abuse of the state secrets defense. It is extremely troubling that this case doesn't strike the new and improved Obama DOJ and qualifying as an abuse. I can appreciate that the new President doesn't want to be seen going on a partisan witch-hunt, but here we are talking about giving people a chance to make their case in court. Nothing more American than that.

I'm a huge Obama admirer, but I feel deeply betrayed by this decision, and can only hope that upon a little reflection it will be reversed.

[wldnswmmr]

I agree with everything you're saying except the title of your post. In what sense is this a "slip-up?" The lawyer for the DOJ was asked specifically at the hearing whether Obama's DOJ intended to continue the same blatant denial of a plaintiff's right to a day in court to try issues regarding his kidnapping and torture in Egypt, involving electrical shock, severe beatings and a show trial. There is nothing "secret" about this plaintiff's case - it's been the subject of long articles, a Swedish reparation payment, massive scrutiny. The Obama DOJ simply wants to shield the Bush Administration from the scrutiny that a trial would bring to their illegal actions, including complicity in torture. In so doing, Obama's administration is itself now complicit. But this is not a slip-up -- it's a decision to go down the same illegal road as Bush & Co.

[BarryS]

1. move them to USbased federal prisons.
2. convene grand juries, or military courts under current law.
3. hold trial.
if convicted -- prison; if not deport to country of citizenship.

end it is very simple. the secret, national security information is a bogus excuse. And, if they were tortured, well Bushco can be indicted too.