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Before Barack ever takes office, let's make some things perfectly clear to him about just what we want.
First, there will be no Nixonesque pardons for anyone in the outgoing Administration. The new Justice Department will quietly begin work before even taking office. They will prioritize the criminal offenses of the past 8 years of Bush misrule, and investigations into the most serious and provable of those offenses will start immediately.
Second a special Committee to Restore Rights, composed of legal experts and prominent civil libertarians inside and outside the government, will examine the damage wrought upon the Constitution and Bill of Rights in the Bush years, and will bring forth a set of recommendations for legislative action to repair the damage. There will be special attention given to the restoration of habeas corpus. Also, an explicit proposal for legislation shall be written to ensure citizens' rights to privacy in their personal lives and communications.
In other words, we have to reclaim the government an re-establish the rule of law for the people before moving on to any of the other pressing and urgent issues facing us. This won't happen automatically. We need to push, yell, scream, and in general make total nuisances of ourselves until we start seeing the results we want. It won't happen automatically just because we got "our guy" in power.
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