The article doesn't make that claim:
In expanding the surveillance state and the White House’s wartime authorities, Obama has continued a grand and unfortunate presidential tradition—fresh details of which have quietly come to light.
In expanding the surveillance state and the White House’s wartime authorities, Obama has continued a grand and unfortunate presidential tradition—fresh details of which have quietly come to light.
On the NSA, Obama has made the opposite calculation.
Seems like it does to me.