Court slaps Obama for liberty grab

Contrary to everything he stood for in the election campaign, Obama tried to claim for his office the sweeping state secret powers sought by the Bush Administration. Today a US court ruled that it would tolerate no such nonsense:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lawsuit brought by five men who say they had been tortured as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s “extraordinary rendition” program could proceed, dealing a blow to efforts by both the Bush and Obama administrations to claim sweeping executive secrecy powers.

The defense lawyer explained how high-handed the government had been:

We had not asked the government for a single piece of evidence when the CIA barreled into court and insisted the entire case had to be thrown out.

The position of the Obama Administration was creepy, as it had been claiming as "state secrets" information that was already in the public domain.