General Michael Hayden, director of the NSA under George Bush, is happy to see that upon taking office Barack Obama has continued many of the surveillance programs initiated under George Bush. There are some differences. Obama has utilized the FISA Courts while surveillance under Bush was often outside the law. Hayden also states that the programs have been more transparent under Obama:
Gen. Michael Hayden, NSA director under former president George W. Bush, defended the legality of the agency’s massive phone and internet data surveillance programs on Wednesday, calling them important and suggesting that opponents didn’t understand what was actually going on.
Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Hayden downplayed criticism of the data collection effort as governmental overreach by claiming President Barack Obama’s administration had actually been more forthcoming than Bush’s on the issue.
“Frankly, the Obama administration was more transparent about this effort than we were in the Bush administration,” he said. “I mean, they made this metadata collection activity available to all the members of Congress. Not just all the members of the intelligence committees.”
Some lawmakers have admitted that they were aware of the NSA’s activities before the string of reports last week, which has led many to defend the programs as vital and standard procedures. Others have spoken outagainst them in the wake of the recent disclosures, arguing that the reports held details that they hadn’t been told about and wouldn’t have supported.
This does help demonstrate the hypocrisy of conservatives who supported the surveillance under Bush but now attack Obama. What’s their complaint–that Obama is allowing judicial oversight and is more transparent? Somehow this doesn’t seem to be what they are saying.
Unfortunately, even if Obama is acting more within the law, and with greater transparency, he continues to allow a massive accumulation of data which many question whether is Constitutional and which carries risks to liberty. Obama has also shown an understanding which George Bush lacked of the need to consider issues of security versus liberty, which will hopefully lead to a change in policy.