Sorry for shouting in that title, but it's becoming so obvious and yet it's just not happening.
Canada OK'd deporting Arar, reports U.S. TV
Canadian intelligence quietly approved of the United States' decision to arrest and deport Syrian-born Canadian Maher Arar to Syria, CBS 60 Minutes II reported Wednesday night.It seems the "he said, she said" isn't going to go away unless there is a thorough public investigation.
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...60 Minutes II, citing senior U.S. officials, said Canadian law enforcement agencies were fully aware and sanctioned Arar's deportation in the fall of 2002 at the same time Foreign Affairs officials were urging U.S. agencies to return him to Canada.
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"While Canadian diplomats were demanding answers from the U.S., it turns out that all along it was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who'd been passing U.S. intelligence the information about Arar's alleged terrorist associations," CBS correspondent Vicki Mabrey reported."U.S. government officials we spoke to say they told Canadian intelligence they were sending Arar to Syria and the Canadians OK'd it."
I had to ask myself why I wasn't immediately 'outraged', to use the word that's common currency since yesterday, at the affront to freedom of the press represented by yesterday's raid on the home of journalist Juliet O'Neill. After sleeping on it, the answer was obvious: it's because I'm not surprised.
My own position has long been that our government needs to call a public inquiry, not just to examine the specifics of the Maher Arar case, but to review the security related legislation that was passed in the wake of 9/11 and the way in which our security establishment has been functioning. The law under which these search warrants were issued is one such piece of legislation and it's further evidence that our response to the threat of terrorism (I refuse to call it a 'war on terror' in a serious context) has been heavy-handed and misdirected, and in the process has threatened the very freedoms we're supposed to be protecting. The cure may well be worse than the disease and that possibility needs to be thoroughly examined.
I'll grant that law enforcement agencies have a difficult job to do in trying to protect us, but in attempting to make it easier for them our government has made it too easy for the security of individual Canadians to be threatened in the name of supposedly protecting all of us. We've allowd a mindset to develop where too many can simply take it for granted that security trumps individual rights, the public's right to know and even the right of elected officials to know, the moment there's even a possibility of 'terrorism' involved.
Being outraged today and forgetting about it tomorrow won't change anything. We need to keep this story on the front burner, which is why I keep pounding on it when there are so many others who do it and probably do it better. We need to stay focused on it and take every opportunity to say: we need a public inquiry.
