President Obama’s speech yesterday, presenting his vision of a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy, included welcome rhetoric about the importance of constitutional principles, including Due Process and rights to dissent. It may represent the high watermark for civil liberties since his inauguration five years ago.

It is disappointing, given his thoughtful words, that he ignored so many inconvenient truths. From extrajudicial assassination to free speech and freedom of the press, from the need to address root causes of terrorism to partnership with American Muslims, the president promoted important principles but papered over reality.

Three Occupy activists known as the “NATO 3,” who came to Chicago to protest at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit last May and were arrested and later indicted on terrorism charges, are challenging the constitutionality of an untested Illinois anti-terrorism statute under which they were charged.

President Barack Obama signed the intelligence authorization bill—the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Included in the bill were restrictions that would make it harder for his administration to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison and the Bagram prison in Afghanistan.

Senators from the Republican Party have asked a federal appeals court to permit them to participate in oral argument in a lawsuit against the indefinite detention provision of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Through their lawyers, according to Josh Gerstein of POLITICO, they filed a motion requesting ten minutes to give a presentation on the intent of the provision and how the court’s resolution of this matter could affect or impact Congress.

Lawyers involved in bringing a lawsuit against an indefinite detention provision in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) have expressed outrage over a Congressional conference committee decision to remove an amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein that she thought would ban the indefinite detention of US citizens.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has put forward a flawed and dangerous amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. It passed on Thursday and purportedly aimed to prevent United States citizens from being detained indefinitely by the military. What it did was further entrench the power of military indefinite detention and make it more likely the power will be used against immigrants in the United States, even though that has historically been unconstitutional.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has put forward a flawed and dangerous amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. It passed on Thursday and purportedly aimed to prevent United States citizens from being detained indefinitely by the military. What it did was further entrench the power of military indefinite detention and make it more likely the power will be used against immigrants in the United States, even though that has historically been unconstitutional.

Depending on who you believe, the Senate either voted today to limit indefinite detention practices or voted to allow those limits to be determined by the executive branch. You may need a degree in linguistics to figure this one out.

The Senate, in an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, accepted a measure written by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) calling for a continued drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan, at a “steady pace” through the end of 2014, and a close to all combat operation “at the earliest date” possible.

The news here is that Merkley got a filibuster-proof majority for that measure, for the first time, with 12 Republicans and 50 out of 51 Democrats in support (Lieberman, of course, voted no; Wyden and McCaskill didn’t vote today).

President Obama’s reelection has sparked an onslaught of analysis attempting to define the agenda for his second term. Will it reflect the vision of restoring liberty and security on which the president ran in 2008, or the disappointing passivity towards the national security state that characterized his first term?

More to the point, will President Obama’s legacy include emerging American authoritarianism, or instead the recovery of constitutional freedoms lost over the past decade?