By Ralph Steadman

Kelley B. Vlahos in her article on Antiwar.com points to the hypocrisies of a government and a President who condemn torture but try to destroy those who try and expose when we are at fault for using it.

“The Obama Administration is further criminalizing the exposure of the US’s own state sponsored and supported criminal behavior and activity — namely torture and in my case warrantless surveillance — while protecting and hiding from accountability those who authorized, approved, conducted and implemented the criminal behavior and activity under the cover and guile and guise of secrecy,”

The government it seems has gone to great lengths to create these charges.

In regards to Kiriakou “outing” an agent, the reporter he allegedly spoke to gave the name to defense lawyers, according to the indictment, who then used it in a “double blind” line-up for detainees to determine which agents had been in charge of their individual interrogations. A subsequent investigation found that members of the defense team “did not break any laws” in “handling the classified information they possessed,” but nevertheless, according to the complaint, Kiriakou broke the law when he divulged the information in the first place.

Obama also has made it clear his opposition to warrantless wiretapping was lip service and of course, he himself pushed for indefinite detention in NDAA.

Contrary to his aggressive attacks on whistle-blowers, Obama has been more than accommodating to government forces that even he believed were undermining citizens’ constitutional rights when he was “candidate Obama” that is, in 2008.

Despite his opposition to warrantless surveillance under the Bush Administration, Obama not only voted as senator to give immunity to the telecom companies that assisted the government in violating the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) in regards to spying on Americans, he has supported a continuation of the Bush policies, and has been far less aggressive in holding individuals and agencies to account when they blatantly overstep the law.

“The fetid odor, the thing that really stinks about this case is that CIA officers had been immunized for committing waterboarding, for committing torture,” said Radack. “Now, the only person being prosecuted in connection with torture is John Kiriakou, who blew the whistle on waterboarding being torture. And the only person to be prosecuted in connection with warrantless electronic surveillance is Tom Drake, a whistle-blower who blew the whistle on warrantless surveillance.”

The larger picture is that the government, under Obama is tightening it’s fist, making a more and more vague description of who is an “enemy of the state”.  It seems no small coincidence that this is happening in the shadow of the Occupy movement when people are finally making a push back at the forces that for so long pressed on us without resistance.  The question is, when will these definitions of being an “enemy” include you and I?