During the “bad old days” of George W. Bush, people were kidnapped off the street by the CIA, drugged, chained to the floor of an airplane, and secretly flown across the world to be tortured, in a policy known as “rendition.” Five of these people tried to sue the responsible Bush administration officials, but the Bush Justice Department had the case thrown out of court on the grounds of “state secrets.” These five are now bringing a civil suit against Jeppesen DataPlan, the Boeing subsidiary that coordinated, enabled, and profited handsomely from these secret flights to hell. The Bush DOJ lawyers argued before the Ninth Circuit that this civil case, too, should be thrown out based on the state secrets privilege, but the Court gave the Obama administration a chance to alter their argument.

The Obama administration, and Eric Holder’s Justice Department, actively reviewed the facts of the case. The facts of the case are known publicly – in addition to having been widely published, other nations have investigated the claims, and one of the plaintiffs even received compensation from the Swedish government for its ancillary role in the kidnapping and torture.

Obama chose to maintain the Bush stance: the case, in its entirety, must be dismissed, because for a Federal Court to even examine the matter would be to violate our precious National Security. Notice that the claim is not that specific pieces of evidence must be withheld; or that the Court should make a determination as to whether the case may proceed with publicly available evidence. No, the Obama administration is making the same sweeping claim the Bushites did: our entire program of rendition and torture is a secret, and may not be subject to any judicial review.

This stance is in direct contradiction to the Democratic consensus that emerged during the Bush years, and stands in opposition to candidate Obama’s repeated pledges to roll back the Bush administration’s abuse of executive power.

I find today’s action horrifying, depressing, and entirely unsurprising.

But, you know – Obama’s a great guy. I’m sure he won’t abuse his dictatorial powers the way Bush did. So, y’know, it’s all good.