A senior lawyer for the U.S. government has told a judge hearing a lawsuit over Maher Arar's deportation to Syria that foreign citizens passing through American airports have almost no rights. At most, Mary Mason told a hearing in Brooklyn, N.Y., passengers would have the right not to be subjected to "gross physical abuse." The policy has implications for Canadians who head for international destinations via big American airports in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major centres.
Mason said the U.S. government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country. If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. Mason told Judge David Trager that's because they are deemed to be still outside the U.S., from a legal point of view.
[...]
However, department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson issued this short statement: "The United States does not practise torture, export torture or condone torture." In legal briefs written by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the Justice Department has defined torture to mean "pain consistent with major organ failure or death."
Well, that makes a lot of sense. If torture is causing death or near death, then the US doesn't sanction torture. More Doublethink Dubya: torture isn't torture if you say it isn't.
Maher Arar is a man who was release after what he and human rights organizations say was torture from a Syrian where he was sent by DOJ officials after Canada failed to protest. Under torture he was forced to admit to being in Afghanistan. All charges were dropped after some gentle diplomacy by Canada. This guy's fate has been headlines in Canada for over two years. Yet, this is the first I've heard of it.
There are DOJ officials who have little better to do than dig around in people's history looking for any inconsistency or suspicion associated with "secret evidence" presumably from NSA communications surveilence, intelligence from foreign agencies, and interrogation of our own "unlawful combatants" under great duress. He was unable to even hear the evidence against him and was summerily wisked off to Syria. Here is an extensive 2+ year Maher Arar Timeline.
CBC News
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria in 1970, came to Canada in 1987. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in computer engineering, Arar worked in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer. On a stopover in New York as he was returning to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia in September 2002, U.S. officials detained Arar, claiming he has links to al-Qaeda, and deported him to Syria, even though he was carrying a Canadian passport.
When Arar returned to Canada more than a year later, he said he had been tortured during his incarceration and accused American officials of sending him to Syria knowing that they practise torture.
One can only hope his lawsuit goes forward. The only thing Bush listens two is money and bad publicity that gets in the way of money.
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