I think I'm going to be sick...
By Zach Neumann
It’s been confirmed. The United States has (and probably) is deporting terror suspects to foreign countries to be tortured by governments not bound by petty little things like due process of law. The NY Times reports:
Maher Arar, a 35-year-old Canadian engineer, is suing the United States, saying American officials grabbed him in 2002 as he changed planes in New York and transported him to Syria where, he says, he was held for 10 months in a dank, tiny cell and brutally beaten with a metal cable.
Now federal aviation records examined by The New York Times appear to corroborate Mr. Arar's account of his flight, during which, he says, he sat chained on the leather seats of a luxury executive jet as his American guards watched movies and ignored his protests.
The tale of Mr. Arar, the subject of a yearlong inquiry by the Canadian government, is perhaps the best documented of a number of cases since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which suspects have accused the United States of secretly delivering them to other countries for interrogation under torture. Deportation for interrogation abroad is known as rendition.
In papers filed in a New York court replying to Mr. Arar's lawsuit, Justice Department lawyers say the case was not one of rendition but of deportation. They say Mr. Arar was deported to Syria based on secret information that he was a member of Al Qaeda, an accusation he denies.
I understand that certain constitutional provisions have to be circumvented from time to time in the name of national security. However, I question if this is one of those times. I am posting this because I find myself in something of an intellectual quagmire. While my small-l-liberal sensibilities are shaken when I read about this case, I still understand that the government needs to be able to deal with potential terrorists quickly. It seems there is no right answer here. More than anything, this article makes me sad because I’m beginning to realize that security and liberty are not completely compatible. While this conclusion may seem obvious to some, it is one I’ve just come to accept. I am deeply disturbed by all of this.
Posted by Zach Neumann at March 30, 2005 11:21 AM
| TrackBack
Calhoun stated that when liberty and government come into conflict, liberty must give way for it's own preservation by government.
They question comes when we feel we're giving up to much liberty for a government that fails to perserve it.
That's where I see it right now.
The first question would be, why if it was an Al-Qaeda suspect was he deported to Syria? which is clearly a country that harbors terrorists? It really doesn't make much sense.
I agree with you that in cases of national security some provisions need to be circumvented.
The main issue here is that, after 9/11, the real debate about how far the government should go to limit some liberties has not really taken place. The world changed after that event, and it was clear that some liberties were going to be limited. But I have not really seen an organized, national debate about how far the people are willing to let the government go.
One possible answer to that is that, since people have not revolted yet, they are still comfortable with the level of liberties that the government has taken away. Some may argue that most people have not even realized which policies have changed, since they have not been yet directly affected by them. Reporting of these kind of events is the only way to raise awareness and generate a real debate.
