Obama's civil liberties speech: Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.

Obama's speech this morning, like most Obama speeches, made pretty points in rhetorically effective ways about the Constitution, our values, transparency, oversight, the state secrets privilege, and the rule of law.  But his actions, in many critical cases, have repeatedly run afoul of those words.  And while his well-crafted speech can have a positive impact on our debate and contained some welcome and rare arguments from a high-level political leader -- changes in the terms of the debate are prerequisites to changes in policy and the value of rhetoric shouldn't be understated -- they're still just words until his actions become consistent with them.

Worse, Obama repeatedly invoked the paradigm of The War on Terror to justify some extreme policies -- see my post of earlier today on this practice -- beginning with his rather startling declaration that he will work to create a system of "preventive detention" for accused Terrorists without a trial, in order to keep locked up indefinitely people who, in his words, "cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people."  In other words, even as he paid repeated homage to "our values" and "our timeless ideals," he demanded the power (albeit with unspecified judicial and Congressional oversight) to keep people in prison with no charges or proof of any crime having been committed, all while emphasizing that this "war" will continue for at least ten years.  Compare the power of indefinite, "preventive" detention he's seeking to this:

"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789. ME 7:408, Papers 15:269.
Executive imprisonment has been considered oppressive and lawless since John, at Runnymede, pledged that no free man should be imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, or exiled save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."  Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 533 (1953) (Jackson, J.) (conc. op.).

Similarly, he simultaneously paid homage to "rule of law" while demanding that there be no investigations or accountability for those who repeatedly broke the law. 

The speech was fairly representative of what Obama typically does:  effectively defend some important ideals in a uniquely persuasive way and advocating some policies that promote those ideals (closing Guantanamo, banning torture tactics, limiting the state secrets privilege) while committing to many which plainly violate them (indefinite preventive detention schemes, military commissions, denial of habeas rights to Bagram abductees, concealing torture evidence, blocking judicial review on secrecy grounds).  Like all political officials, Obama should be judged based on his actions and decisions, not his words and alleged intentions and motives.  Those actions in the civil liberties realm, with some exceptions, have been profoundly at odds with his claimed principles, and this speech hasn't changed that.  Only actions will.

Read Original Article:(Via Salon: Glenn Greenwald.)