Welcome home, war

By Alfred W McCoy

In his approach to National Security Agency surveillance, as well as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) renditions, drone assassinations, and military detention, President Barack Obama has to a surprising extent embraced the expanded executive powers championed by his conservative predecessor, George W Bush.

This bipartisan affirmation of the imperial executive could "reverberate for generations", warns Jack Balkin, a specialist on First Amendment freedoms at Yale Law School. And consider these but some of the early fruits from the hybrid seeds that the "war on terror" has planted on American soil. Yet surprisingly few Americans seem aware of the toll that this already endless war has taken on our civil liberties.