patrick.net

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/a-senators-lonely-crusade-to-learn-the-cias-secrets/267180/

The body he sits on, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, is charged with providing "vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States," to ensure "that they conform with the Constitution and U.S. law." There is no one in America more justified in demanding to know the official legal rationale behind actions like targeted killings. Obama isn't just keeping this information from the American people. He isn't just hiding his legal reasoning from the U.S. Congress. He is stonewalling one of 15 senators that federal law establishes as the most important check on secret abuses by the CIA.

Obama has created exactly the sort of secretive, unaccountable environment that led to many of the CIA's most egregious historic abuses. He ought to be held accountable for all abuses that result from his reckless imprudence. And he ought to be judged harshly, because he knows better.

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