Presidential report card

It's traditional for new presidents to get a 100-day report card on their initial efforts. The idea is to get a feel for the chief executive's policy direction, the wisdom of that direction and how effectively he's getting the job done. So, how is Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, doing when it comes to respecting and protecting our civil liberties? Well, the new guy hasn't made much of a break with the policies of his predecessor, which may be why the best assessment is captured by a recent Time headline: "Civil-Liberties Advocates Dismayed By Obama's Moves."

First, the good news: The Obama administration has released memos written by Bush administration officials authorizing torture of suspected terrorists. Prosecution of those officials is unlikely; current officials probably don't want to set a precedent that could come back to haunt them in four or eight years. And high-ranking Democratic legislators would certainly be implicated in any investigation of who knew what about the torture. But, presumably, the use of these tactics is now at an end.

President Obama has also promised to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay -- ground zero for much (but not all) of the mistreatment of prisoners authorized by the Bush administration. The intent is for the facility to beclosed "within one year." That move also signals a willingness to begin some sort of legal process by which the government would have to prove its case against the remaining detainees (except ... see below).

And in February, Attorney General Eric Holder announced at a press conference that the new administration would soon end the policy of federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in states that have legalized the use of cannabis as a medicine (but, again, see below).

The Obama administration has also taken some small steps toward lifting travel restrictions on Cuba.

That's the good news. Unfortunately, the good news comes with caveats, and there's plenty of bad news to go around.

The announced closing of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and supposedly imminent legal proceedings for the detainees hit a bit of a hiccup. In particular, the Department of Justice has said in legal proceedings that, while the term "enemy combatants" will no longer be used to justify detention without charges at Guantanamo Bay, terrorism suspects will still be detained without charges. And Guantanamo is the only facility where even that small change applies -- the old rules are in force everywhere else.

In response, Human Rights Watch objects, "Rather than rejecting the Bush administration's ill-conceived notion of a 'war on terror,' the Obama administration's position on detainees has merely tinkered with its form."

That business-as-usual attitude toward the treatment of detainees in far-flung bases is troubling, since the administration has been accused by the New York Times editorial board, among others, of positioning Bagram airbase in Afghanistan as "the next Guantanamo." The Justice Department is appealing a ruling that would extend basic habeas corpus rights to the detainees held at Bagram.

As for reining-in federal efforts against medical marijuana ... we're still waiting. DEA raids have continued even while Obama occupies the White House and Holder makes his promises. The administration has also made no effort to curtail the federal prosecution of Charles Lynch, a California man who dispensed marijuana to patients with the blessing of public officials. Lynch faces a likely five years in prison from a reluctant judge whose hands are bound by sentencing guidelines.

And forget about hopes of any more substantial reform of drug policy -- President Obama has explicitly rejected the idea of legalizing marijuana. Responding to Obama's take on the legalization issue, Aaron Houston, of the Marijuana Policy Project, wrote, "[t]he whole exercise had the air of a skilled politician trying to get away from an uncomfortable subject as fast as possible."

Overall, Houston said of the president, "reformers can only give him a grade of 'incomplete' on marijuana policy."

Hmmm ... but how about openness? After all, as a candidate, Barack Obama was (correctly) harshly critical of the secretive Bush administration.

Would you believe that matters may now be worse?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced just a few weeks ago that the Obama administration's legal arguments are "worse than Bush's" when it comes to claiming that some government abuses involve such sensitive secrets that people shouldn't be allowed to sue for redress.

Specifically, in a case involving allegations of warrantless wiretapping, EFF's Activism and Technology Manager, Tim Jones, says:

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 Administration has claimed that the government cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.

Less surprisingly for a president who comes from the political Left, Obama looks unenthusiastic about respecting the right to bear arms. While the president himself has made reassuring noises about avoiding new legislation, both Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have called for tighter restrictions on semiautomatic rifles and other firearms. It's hard to believe they'd speak out on such a volatile issue without their boss's tacit approval.

Honestly, though, civil libertarian hopes for President Obama were probably overblown. While he criticized the Bush administration's more egregious violations while on the campaign trail, he also voted to renew the PATRIOT Act and for the FISA Amendment Act, authorizing warrantless wiretaps. He made the right noises while aspiring to high office, but never displayed any strong commitment to civil liberties issues when it mattered.

On balance, during its first 100 days in office, the Obama administration has made some small improvement -- or promises of improvements -- in relatively peripheral areas, like the fate of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, travel to Cuba and federal medical marijuana policy. But on matters involving the relationship of the government, and especially the executive branch, to individual Americans, the administration has followed its predecessors' footsteps in seeking the greatest possible power and the fewest restrictions on its authority.

In some very important ways regarding our liberty, little changed when the White House gained a new tenant.