Reminder: Obama promised to end the Bush-Cheney surveillance state

One of the constant defenses offered of Barack Obama by his many zealous defenders is that any particular awful conservative thing he does is something he never promised not to do. "You fell in love with a liberal fantasy in 2008! You can't blame him for what he never said he'd do." Well, as with prosecuting medical marijuana dispensaries and closing Guantanamo, it's not true here, either:

For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and "wiretaps without warrants," he said. (He was referring to the lingering legal fallout over reports that the National Security Agency scooped up Americans' phone and Internet activities without court orders, ostensibly to monitor terrorist plots, in the years after the September 11 attacks.) 

It's hardly a new stance for Obama, who has made similar statements in previous campaign speeches, but mention of the issue in a stump speech, alongside more frequently discussed topics like Iraq and education, may give some clue to his priorities.
In our own Technology Voters' Guide, when asked whether he supports shielding telecommunications and Internet companies from lawsuits accusing them of illegal spying, Obama gave us a one-word response: "No."

 But of course, there is only one variable in the calculations that Obama loyalists perform: did Obama say or do it? Then it is right. Besides, if you don't like what Glenn Greenwald's reporting has revealed, you can always engage in innuendo about COMMUNIST CHINA!