Yeah, this worries the hell out of me, to tell the truth. As Glenn Greenwald has argued, this essentially mainstreams the practices, the burden of proof will now fall on those who oppose such practices. It's all here to stay.

I wrote a post on talk_politics recently contrasting the recent actions with the explicit promises he made as a senator and while campaigning as president: http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/132822.html

Turns out it was all bullshit you couldn't believe in.

But all that said, has he really backtracked on his promise to end torture? I thought he had come through on that one.