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	<title>SwamplandCategory: Secrecy &#124; Swampland &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s &#8220;Alice in Wonderland&#8221; Veil of Secrecy</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/04/obamas-alice-in-wonderland-veil-of-secrecy/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2013/01/04/obamas-alice-in-wonderland-veil-of-secrecy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:34:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Crowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Secrecy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=84192</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nearly four years after Barack Obama first became president, one of the least-appreciated aspects of his presidency has been what you might call its residual Bush-Cheneyism. Although Obama has forbidden the use of torture and other enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists, he has interpreted his power to defend America&#8217;s national security nearly as broadly as did his predecessors in the White House. He has overseen expanded federal domestic surveillance, committed the military overseas with little Congressional consultation, and observes Bush&#8217;s pre-emption doctrine when it comes to Iran&#8217;s nuclear program. (Never mind whether the bin Laden mission really included a &#8220;capture&#8221; option, as both U.S. and international law dictated it should.) This week brought a striking reminder of Obama&#8217;s comfort with expansive executive power and secrecy, when a federal judge ruled that the administration doesn&#8217;t have to disclose an internal memo that justified the targeted killing-by-drone of Anwar al-Awlaki, an undeniably wicked al Qaeda agitator who also happened to be a U.S. citizen. He was likely the first American specifically condemned to die by a White House memo, but you won&#8217;t get to see the reasoning behind it because the White House has resisted requests to see it from the New York Times and the ACLU on national security grounds. In her peculiar ruling on Wednesday, Judge Colleen McMahon granted the administration&#8217;s right to secrecy. But at the same time, she described an &#8220;Alice in Wonderland&#8221; legal dynamic that stymies challenges to executive branch national security measures&#8211;including ones that might violate the Constitution. The administration doesn&#8217;t simply refuse to explain its actions, it refuses to explain why it won&#8217;t explain. &#8220;I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret,&#8221; McMahon wrote. To be fair to Obama, much of that thicket originates from the Bush era, and is the work of other<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=84192&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Secrecy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/secrecy/</primary_category_link>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Secrets: Even His Declassification Effort Lacks Transparency</title>
		<link>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/12/obamas-secrets-even-his-declassification-effort-lacks-transparency/</link>
		<comments>http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/12/obamas-secrets-even-his-declassification-effort-lacks-transparency/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:34:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Massimo Calabresi</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secrecy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://swampland.time.com/?p=73882</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Barack Obama disappointed many on the left who thought they were getting a liberal president on national security issues. The man who pledged to roll back George W. Bush legacy as a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008 quickly became equally or more hawkish than his predecessor on parts of the War one Terror, the use of drones and other high-profile issues. Nowhere is that more visible than in government secrecy. Among Obama’s first acts as President was the issuance on Jan. 21, 2009 of a memo to cabinet and other officials admonishing transparency. The same day he declared that “transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.” As it turns out, Obama has been the most aggressive President ever in going after leakers of classified information, charging six whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, more than all previous Presidents combined. Most recently, in response to charges his aides leaked classified material for political gain, Obama introduced additional new measures to combat leaks. Obama claims there’s a logic to what the left and right label hypocrisy. Even as he aggressively goes after government leakers (and subpoenas reporters) for disclosing sensitive government information, Obama says he is trying to diminish the number of secrets that need to be protected. The argument here is similar to the one we described in our Wikileaks cover, namely that excessive classification is part of the problem: the more secrets you create, the more people get clearance to look at them, the less important “secrecy” becomes, the more likely there will be leaks. Instead of a low fence around a huge number of secrets, Obama says he&#8217;s trying to create a high fence around the secrets that really matter. Two years after Obama ordered a review of “overclassification,” the preliminary results are in and nominally Obama has something to point to in the way of classification reform. The Department of Defense, which has been the most aggressive government agency in resisting classification reform, has announced it will eliminate some 20% of<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=swampland.time.com&#038;blog=5284847&#038;post=73882&#038;subd=timeswampland&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Secrecy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://swampland.time.com/category/domestic-policy-2/secrecy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timeswampland.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/2100_sl_obama_0712.jpg?w=200</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">US President Barack Obama speaks about m</media:title>
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