Domestically, Obama has attacked Muslims and Arabs by continuing Bush’s policies of torture, extraordinary rendition, and preemptive prosecution. American Muslims continue to be harassed and persecuted by the state. The drama of “homegrown terrorism” was only heightened under Obama in 2009, paving the way for the far-right-wing Islamophobic warriors. Obama has even gone further than Bush in several ways. He has secured for the president the power to execute US citizens suspected of ties to terrorism without so much as a trial or the apparently unnecessary burden of proof; the cleric and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki was summarily executed in 2011. He also signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which, among other things, allows the military to detain “terror suspects” who are US citizens indefinitely without charge. Although this is both unconstitutional and illegal, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, and even though this process has torn Muslim families apart, Obama adopted Bush’s policies and codified them into law.

XREF: Connects to broader narratives about the continuity between Bush and Obama administrations on civil liberties and surveillance, relevant to any discussion of executive power and the war on terror. QUESTION: Worth verifying the specific legal claims here — the NDAA indefinite detention provision and the constitutionality of the al-Awlaki killing — given the strongly partisan framing of this source.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 581