On Tuesday, if you believe what some liberal bloggers and columnists are saying, President Obama delivered a chest blow to civil liberty. He sided with the Bush Administration on an extremely touchy and disputatious national security matter, thereby reversing an iron-clad campaign promise.Mr. Obama's Justice Department decided not to retract a claim of what's called the "State Secrets Privilege" in a civil lawsuit brought by five former Guantanamo detainees against a subsidiary of the Boeing Corporation that allegedly helped to plan their renditions to countries that tortured them.
The Bush Administration had asserted the privilege, which was formally recognized by the Supreme Court in 1953, to prevent the case from being tried. Allowing the litigation to proceed, the Bush lawyers argued, would significantly jeopardize the country's national security.
The case has long been a favorite example for civil libertarians looking to point out just what was wrong with the Bush administration's approach -- that under the guide of secrecy and the fig leaf of national security, policies that sanctioned torture could be hidden from judicial review, and those who broke the law would be freed from formal accountability.
But Mr. Obama faces enormous expectations to change the way justice is meted out. On the surface, by refusing to revoke the privilege, the Obama administration endorsed the Bush administration's viewpoint. Administration officials said a retraction of the privilege in this particular case would set a precedent regarding access to classified information in future cases. Just 22 days in, Obama's lawyers weren't ready to radically change the law. - CBS News Story
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Sen. Gregg withdrew because (1) Obama’s chutzpah crossed the line and (2) Obama CANNOT put away his “birth certificate” issue.
1. Here’s the chutzpah: The Republicans didn’t get their act together enough to challenge Obama for not being constitutionally qualified to be President as an Article 2 “natural born citizen” so Obama’s White House steals the census from the Commerce Department against the specific instructions of the constitution itself — “actual enumeration” under Article 1.
2. Here’s the “birth certificate” issue: Since Obama’s earnest drive to convince the nation to weaken its economic strength through redistribution as well as weaken its national defense, COUPLED WITH HIS UNPRECEDENTED WHITE HOUSE TAKEOVER OF DECENNIAL CENSUS TAKING FROM THE COMMERCE DEPARTMENT, has confirmed the very threats to our Republic’s survival that the Constitution was designed to avert, it no longer is sustainable for the United States Supreme Court to refrain from exercising WHAT IS ITS ABSOLUTE CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY TO DEFEND THE NATION FROM UNLAWFUL USURPATION. The questions of Obama’s Kenyan birth and his father’s Kenyan/British citizenship (admitted on his own website) have been conflated by his sustained unwillingnes to supply his long form birth certificate now under seal, and compounded by his internet posting of a discredited ‘after-the-fact’ short form ‘certificate’. In the absence of these issues being acknowledged and addressed, IT IS MANIFEST THAT OBAMA REMAINS INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT UNDER ARTICLE 2 OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. Being a 14th Amendment ‘citizen’ is not sufficient. A ‘President’ MUST BE an Article 2 ‘natural born citizen’ AS DEFINED BY THE FRAMERS’ INTENT.
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