Is he really that blind to miss that all those bad ideas Bush had… Obama is expanding upon? That he’s in bed with the corporations just as Bush was… if not moreso.

Perhaps there needs to be a campaign to mail copies of Tom Wood’s Meltdown to everyone in the media.

http://www.itnews.com.au/…

The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States.

From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of international travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta.

Biometric technology such as fingerprint scans has been used by US Customs and Border Patrol for several years to gain a biometric record of non-US citizens entering the United States.

But under the Bush Administration, a plan was formulated to also scan outgoing passengers.

Michael Hardin, a senior policy analyst with the US-Visit Program at the United States Department of Homeland Security told a Biometrics Institute conference today that the DHS will use the data from the trial to “inform us as to where to take [exit screening] next.”

“We are trying to ensure we know more about who came and who left,” he said. “We have a large population of illegal immigrants in the United States – we want to make sure the person getting on the plane really is the person the records show to be leaving.”

The original exit scanning legislation planned by the Bush administration stipulated that airlines would be responsible for conducting the exit fingerprints.

But after much protest, Hardin said the new Obama administration re-considered this legislation two weeks ago and is “not as sold that private sector should be agency for exit fingerprints.”

“The new administration feels that perhaps it is more appropriate that Government should take that role.”

So the Obama administration is a little less fascist and a little more socialist. We already knew he  was more authoritarian so this shouldn’t surprise anyone. New boss just like the old boss.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

The rightwing attacked Stewart for his cool and well-thought-out position that Truman was a war criminal for his atomic bombings.

So here Stewart is, cravenly retracting his wonderful moment of truth and logical consistency. He bends over backwards to make himself look respectable, to laugh off his “stupid” condemnation of Truman’s murderous actions.

Of course Truman was a war criminal. Beyond Hiroshima and Nagasaki was Operation Keelhaul, whereby Truman helped Stalin round up millions of expatriates and subject them to Soviet slavery (and in many cases death). Then there was his undeclared war of aggression in Korea, where he targeted civilians with napalm and deliberately destroyed dams to flood villages filled with helpless people.

Truman is one of my litmus tests for the left. For all their problems, leftists who at least are antiwar enough, and nonpartisan enough, to recognize that Truman, domestic dictator, architect of the Cold War and butcher of millions and destroyer of cities, is not any more admirable than the relatively less criminal George W. Bush, tend to get my respect. Those who defend Truman’s acts of mass barbarism represent all the worst “liberal” ideals of the 20th century. On the other hand, those, like Stewart, who seem to have the instinctual desire to speak the truth, only to backtrack and defend one of history’s greatest murderers, are perhaps even more obnoxious than the latter group.

http://www.eff.org/…

Friday evening, in a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF’s litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, the Obama Administration’s made two deeply troubling arguments.

First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue “would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.” As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence.

It’s an especially disappointing argument to hear from the Obama Administration. As a candidate, Senator Obama lamented that the Bush Administration “invoked a legal tool known as the ’state secrets’ privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.” He was right then, and we’re dismayed that he and his team seem to have forgotten.

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.

Previously, the Bush Administration has argued that the U.S. possesses “sovereign immunity” from suit for conducting electronic surveillance that violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, FISA is only one of several laws that restrict the government’s ability to wiretap. The Obama Administration goes two steps further than Bush did, and claims that the US PATRIOT Act also renders the U.S. immune from suit under the two remaining key federal surveillance laws: the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act. Essentially, the Obama Adminstration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.

Again, the gulf between Candidate Obama and President Obama is striking. As a candidate, Obama ran promising a new era of government transparency and accountability, an end to the Bush DOJ’s radical theories of executive power, and reform of the PATRIOT Act. But, this week, Obama’s own Department Of Justice has argued that, under the PATRIOT Act, the government shall be entirely unaccountable for surveilling Americans in violation of its own laws.

This isn’t change we can believe in. This is change for the worse.

Do I need to repeat myself about how I don’t think this is the change people were expecting?

I caught this comment on Slashdot about this story that I really liked.

It is my position that Bush was a horrible president because he weakened our constitution, was an ugly warmonger, and spent money like it was water.

It is my position that Obama is about the same with the only difference being who gets some of the wastefully spent money.

Both “sides” treat the populace like we’re their own public goatse waiting patiently to get stretched just a bit wider by some Republican prick or a Democratic cock.

If only that could be the image people imagined when someone said “Republican” or “Democrat.” Third parties would have no problem getting into office. Perhaps that could be the attack plan for 2012. Splice in a single frame of goatse.cx once in a while during R and D presidential debate feeds.