Books will be written about this. I firmly expect Glenn Greenwald to be among those to write one of the best books. But I will say just this.
The Obama administration's record on civil liberties is the worst since the sixties and seventies, when the Johnson and Nixon crowds let loose the Feds on anti-war activists.
Obama is, allegedly, a constitutional law professor. Despite that, he appointed Eric Holder as Attorney General, a man who has refused to enforce the anti-fraud laws against the Wall Street bankers who nearly destroyed our economy. At the same time, Holder, presumably under orders from the executive branch, has employed the full weight of the Justice Department against whistleblowers who seek to reveal the crimes of the high and mighty.
Obama has a lot of supporters who have either no idea how secretive his administration is, or choose to ignore that fact. In addition, millions of Americans also choose to ignore that Obama has expanded the "War On Terror," by launching a secret drone war, and has made it a permanent fixture in our nation's foreign policy. That's not a theory; top administration officials have confirmed it.
Obama deserves the AP phone records scandal, and probably many others.