At some point, someone is going to start noticing that the Obama administration seems to file a lot of legal briefs that are remarkably similar to legal briefs filed by the Bush administration. You may all recall a certain brief on DOMA filed in June, for example.

Today, we learn that the Obama legal team is adopting Bush’s position on the “state secrets privilege”:

A Supreme Court filing from the Obama administration last month has set off alarm bells on the left. The filing was a friend-of-the-court brief, and it mostly dealt with an excruciatingly technical question about the attorney-client privilege. But its last five pages were about the state secrets privilege, which was not at issue in the case. That privilege, a favorite tool of the Bush administration, allows the government to shut down lawsuits by invoking national security. The Obama administration’s brief argued, though no one had asked, that the state secrets privilege was rooted in the Constitution. The federal government files friend-of-the-court briefs in the Supreme Court all the time, and it is not unusual for it to alert the court to related issues, usually to make sure that the court’s ruling is no broader than it needs to be. But the filing has raised eyebrows and suspicions among liberals already disappointed that the Obama administration has not rejected a number of legal doctrines associated with the Bush administration.

Include me in that group of liberals already disappointed. And, of course, we get the perfunctory, don’t worry about it statement from an Obama spokesperson:

Mr. Miller, the Justice Department spokesman, cautioned against reading too much into the recent filing. “The brief says nothing about either the scope of the privilege or the ability of Congress to legislate in the area,” Mr. Miller said.

Right. Don’t read too much into it. The brief is only the legal position of the United States of America. And, they’re only claiming that it has a basis in the constitution.

Oh, don’t forget, Congress can fix DOMA, too.