Obama disappoints again on detainees and legal issues

Obama run on a platform of change but has disappointed many by upholding some Bush policies. NYT reports that: "The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights. In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys."

Also:

"It's not the first time that the Obama administration has used a Bush administration legal argument after promising to review it. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a review of every court case in which the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege, a separate legal tool it used to have lawsuits thrown out rather than reveal secrets.

The same day, however, Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter cited that privilege in asking an appeals court to uphold dismissal of a suit accusing a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists to allied foreign nations that tortured them.

Letter said that Obama officials approved his argument."

Washington Post has more on this specific case:

" The case now in federal appeals court in San Francisco offers the opportunity to remake state secrets law. Mohamed v. Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc. was brought by five foreign nationals who claim they were arrested abroad under our rendition program, moved incommunicado and tortured in various other countries, where they had been taken by a private CIA contractor. In 2006, a representative of that contractor, Jeppesen DataPlan, admitted to a reporter for the New Yorker magazine, "We do all of the extraordinary rendition flights -- you know, the torture flights. Let's face it." But the CIA introduced an affidavit from agency director Michael V. Hayden stating that disclosing any details would violate the state secrets doctrine, and the trial judge dismissed the lawsuit. The new U.S. Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr., had the chance to change the government's position and renounce the claim of privilege. His decision not to do so is both startling and disappointing, in view of the Obama administration's position on the need for openness in government."