Yes, lots of them did. In fact, it was liberals that organized around the information in the leaks, liberal groups that sponsors the lawsuits based on the leaks that got at least one program revealed by the leaks ruled to be illegal by the courts, liberals who kept calling for a pardon, and liberal media personalities that reached out to Snowden in Russia and broadcast his views to the positive reception from their liberal audiences.
Quite a lot of liberals criticized Obama throughout his Presidency on national security and civil liberties, and equal rights issues, including Guantanamo (even though the closure was blocked by Congress), surveillance, drone strikes, the treatment of Manning and Snowden, the initial feet dragging on DADT, the administration's failure to intervene as timely as critics on the left would have liked in various state and local law enforcement issues, issues surrounding the DAPL protests, etc.
I'm not disputing that, but my point is there wasn't the current sense of urgency to reign in the executive branch. HN didn't partner with the ACLU and unicorns didn't use the situation as a PR piece.
But what's changed? The president decided to restrict travel and "enhance" screening from muslim countries? Ok.. Yet Obama's drone usage in Islamic countries wasn't good enough to get this response? Or maybe the American citizens Obama decided to assassinate without due process, that didn't raise any eyebrows?
I think my point stands. Obama was so damn charismatic that only he could have pulled that off without major backlash. The vast majority of voting democrats just didn't care about constitutional rights when Obama was in office, and the renewed interest is politically motivated. And for that, I'm thankful to have this clown in office.
Yes, lots of them did. In fact, it was liberals that organized around the information in the leaks, liberal groups that sponsors the lawsuits based on the leaks that got at least one program revealed by the leaks ruled to be illegal by the courts, liberals who kept calling for a pardon, and liberal media personalities that reached out to Snowden in Russia and broadcast his views to the positive reception from their liberal audiences.
Quite a lot of liberals criticized Obama throughout his Presidency on national security and civil liberties, and equal rights issues, including Guantanamo (even though the closure was blocked by Congress), surveillance, drone strikes, the treatment of Manning and Snowden, the initial feet dragging on DADT, the administration's failure to intervene as timely as critics on the left would have liked in various state and local law enforcement issues, issues surrounding the DAPL protests, etc.