But the truth is, a careful review of Obama’s major human rights decisions shows a mixed record. In fact, he has often treated human rights as a secondary interest — nice to support when the cost was not too high, but nothing like a top priority he championed.
His actions on counterterrorism provide a case in point. Obama took office with great promise, announcing on his second day that he would stop CIA torture immediately and close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. By all accounts, the torture did stop. But Obama has steadfastly refused to prosecute those responsible or even to allow the release of much more than the summary of a comprehensive Senate Intelligence Committee report that documented it. As a result, rather than reaffirming the criminality of torture, Obama leaves office sending the lingering message that, should future policymakers resort to it, prosecution is unlikely. Given Trump’s campaign rhetoric about reinstating waterboarding (“or worse”), this is hardly an academic point, even considering the opposition of his nominee for defense secretary. [...]
With respect to surveillance, Obama seems to have continued and expanded programs begun by George W. Bush that lead to massive invasions of privacy. Once Edward Snowden alerted the public to these programs (for which he deserves gratitude, not prosecution), the president did initiate some reforms. He supported legislation to limit the National Security Agency’s ability to collect phone records in bulk under one program and to bring more transparency to the specialized foreign intelligence surveillance court. But most of the mass privacy violations that Snowden disclosed remain unaddressed. Obama maintains that when it comes to non-U.S. citizens abroad, the U.S. government is free to sweep up not only records of their email and telephone communications but also the content of those communications. Needless to say, other intelligence agencies, including those with which the United States cooperates closely, are then implicitly free to do the same to U.S. citizens.
Counterterrorism aside, Obama has taken a few important steps, some of which Trump is now threatening to reverse. Early in his tenure, while he still had some cooperation from Congress, Obama passed health-care reform, going a long way toward upholding the right to the highest attainable standard of health by enhancing Americans’ access to health insurance. He got on board with marriage equality, helping secure the Supreme Court’s landmark recognition of the right to same-sex marriage. He also ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” for gays and lesbians serving in the U.S. military, opening military service to everyone regardless of sexual orientation, including transgender people. His support for LGBT rights also became an increasingly important part of his foreign-policy agenda.
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