Bush-era deja vu

U.S. President Obama is accused of continuing the Bush-era torture policies, in a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The report evaluates the White House's record in terms of transparency and accountability for the last 18 months since Obama took office.

Michael Macleod-Ball, ACLU Chief legislative and policy counsel, says the president has been inconsistent in delivering on his election campaign pledges.

“President Obama came into office with promise of great hope and in fact in his early days he took very important steps to try to turn back the tide of the aggregation of the executive branch authority of the Bush administration,” Macleod-Ball acknowledged.

“The executive order banning torture was an important step in the right direction, but at the same time, subsequently the administration took no steps to try to hold those in the Bush administration accountable for the actions that generated the torture in the first place. And so what we see throughout this administration are series of positive steps but they are not quite achieving the result that was promised during the election.”