Big brother Obama?

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Peninsula readers' letters: Aug. 14

From Daily News Group readers
Posted: 08/13/2010 11:47:06 PM PDT






Big Brother Obama?

Dear Editor: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defends the Obama administration's record and his comments on the so-called professional left. On a range of issues including accountability for torture, detention of terrorism suspects and use of lethal force against civilians, there is a very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration.

And in fact, in some cases, you see this administration going even further than the last administration did. Some of what was going on under the last administration was going on despite federal law that prohibited it. That was true, for example, with the warrantless wiretapping program.

And then Congress authorized the warrantless wiretapping that President Bush had authorized. So now you have a statute that authorizes precisely what Bush was doing illegally between 2001 and 2006. But what we had hoped was that the constitutionality of that statute would be tested in the courts.

Big Brother wants to keep an eye on you. He believes in being his "brother's keeper," but it's not for any sort of benign purpose -- or at least, it won't be in the end. It'll end up being for the purpose of control, and he'll use as many methods as possible -- hidden cameras, microphones, chips sensors or whatever.

Ted Rudow III,MA