Before You Get Too Excited

Although the mainstream media made it seem as if the newly signed executive orders are a big change, [Obama's orders leave torture, indefinite detention intact](http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/guan-j23.shtml).

>The orders signed by Obama do not undo the Bush administration’s attacks on constitutional and international law. They do not challenge the supposed right of the president to unilaterally imprison any individual, without trial and without charges, by declaring him to be an “enemy combatant.” Nor do they end the procedure known as “extraordinary rendition,” by which the United States during the Bush years kidnapped alleged terrorists and shipped them to foreign countries or secret CIA prisons outside the US, where they were subjected to torture.