Some time back I wrote in depth about the implementation of something called Homeland Security Presidential Directive #12 (HSPD#12)which threatened my wife's rights as well as the rights of every Federal employee and contractor (my initial coverage was picked up by the Huffington Post). The directive per se isn't bad, merely requiring a uniform system of issuing IDs to all Federal employees and contractors across all agencies. But, under the Bush Administration, no good idea went unexploited for opportunities to deny people their basic civil liberties. The implementation of HSPD#12 became a wholesale attempt to get anyone with access to a Federal facility (including my wife who was a grad student in a NASA run building) to agree to allow the government to investigate every aspect of their lives from medical records, financial records and interviewing their neighbors. Keep in mind, this has nothing to do with top secret materials. EVERYONE from the Board of Ed to NASA etc. would have to comply. This invasion of privacy is back.

Don't get me wrong. I remain impressed that we are far better off in all ways under Obama than we were under Bush, and I have considerable confidence that even when Bush-era polcies are continued under Obama, they will be applied more intelligently. However, there are definitely many Bush-era attacks on our civil liberties that the Obama Administration wants to continue. And no matter how intelligently they apply it, it remains an attack on civil liberties. One such attack impacts my wife directly.  read more »