Well, sort of...
The NY Times editorial doesn’t acknowledge the obvious—the Obama is a mega-hypocrite.
As Richard Seymour writes in the ultra-left UK Guardian: “In opposition, Obama criticised Bush’s policy of spying on citizens’ phone calls – under the rubric of the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Programme – and threatened to filibuster a bill being pushed through the Senate in 2008 to retroactively legalise the practice. He voted for the bill, but protested that he was doing so reluctantly. He claimed to oppose the attempt to give legal cover to the previous administration and the companies colluding in its actions.
Yet, once in office, Obama continued the policy of intrusion on a vast and indiscriminate scale. The same can be said for his attorney general, Eric Holder, once a firm critic of the Bush administration’s spying, now a firm practitioner of the same. Perhaps most alarmingly, the Obama team has continued with the same legal doctrines.”