It takes a lot to shock me during the Obama presidency, but I was stunned when the Senate on July 29, by a vote of 93-1, confirmed James Comey as the chief of the FBI.This is the same former U.S. deputy attorney general who, at the FBI confirmation hearing, "forcefully argued to the Senate that the oversight mechanisms on the government's widespread surveillance of phone records and online habits sufficiently protects Americans' privacy." There was a time when James Comey, as President George W. Bush's deputy attorney general, "became a hero to Democratic opponents of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program ... and unsuccessfully tried to limit tough interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists."So how can this be the same person who now salutes and implements Barack Obama's ceaselessly massive tracking of We The People?The one journalist who has, characteristically, dug deeply and continuously into James Comey's eventual rise to FBI director -- far in excess of J. Edgar Hoover's contempt of the Bill of Rights -- is Glenn Greenwald.Comey, somewhere along his rise to power, lost his spine, Greenwald says. He was among the Bush lawyers "who argued repeatedly that the United States would regret using harsh (interrogation) methods, (but) went along with a 2005 legal opinion asserting that the techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency were lawful."Said Comey in an April 27, 2005, email obtained by the New York Times:"That opinion, giving the green light to the CIA to use all 13 methods in interrogating terrorism suspects, including waterboarding and up to 180 hours of sleep deprivation, 'was ready to go out and I concurred.'"Obviously, if Greenwald were a senator, he'd have voted against Comey.