2. Not only renewing, but greatly expanding the Patriot Act in 2011. You can look up the details online, but it's expanded coverage on business records in particular is pretty grim for any civil libertarian. This one hits just about every liberty enumerated in the Bill of Rights, except perhaps the 5th article.
3. Egregious persecution of American citizen whistleblowers, going so far as to force down the plane of a foreign head of state in their attempts to capture one whistleblower.
4. All the state surveillance of American citizens revealed by the Snowden whistleblowing, which is why it pissed them off so bad.
5. Continuing egregious violations against constitutional limits on unreasonable search and seizure, particularly with respect to federal "civil forfeiture", up 50%+ in money value in 2010, the last year for which I can find data [1].
If you really want, I'll continue, but I'll let others chip in. All this is pretty grim coming from a professor of constitutional law. It makes me wonder what he really believes/believed when he entered office.
1. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Forfeiture#sthash.G1c3wBkR.d...
I recall reading an article describing Obama's inheritance of Bush II's questionable programs. The concern wasn't so much that maybe torturing people (etc) were bad ideas, but how to reform the programs so that they were legitimate under the constitution.
He essentially operates as a constitutional law black hat, searching for bugs which can be exploited to justify the tyrannical status quo.
I am not sure if this is because both parties have drifted to the right economically and foreign affair wise, or it was just his world views from the beginning.
I'd go even farther. Philosophically, his world views seems to be a variation of the neo-conservatism that people hated so much in Bush and Cheney. Who would've guessed in 2008? (a few people did, but very few). And that's little consolation to us civil libertarians now.
Well, lots of people noticed that the hope-change rhetoric was almost entirely devoid of actual policy commitments. He also opposed same-sex marriage, sneered at atheists, etc. Anyone who expected a left-wing presidency was deluding themselves.
But sure, he has also reversed course in a number of ways that probably surprised even the cynics. He talked a lot about transparency and shutting out lobbyists, then wound up doing the opposite.
As the Obama strips away our freedoms at a greater rate than any preceding administration of the last 100 years, someone needs to stand up to them. (and that's just what we know about; who knows what they're doing in secret).
Realistically, our nations most powerful corporations are the only ones who can actually get their attention. And even then, it's David vs Goliath. I'm just happy someone is pointing out the impact of this administration's rash actions directly to their faces. I don't care if it's for mercenary reasons.
Besides, with the famous Apple "1984" commercial being held in reverence by the typical Apple employee, I suspect that many or most Apple employees, including the executive leadership, may hold strong views on privacy and the dangers of state surveillance in good faith.