Before you head south for the winter

I spent some time this evening reviewing the stories about the Maher Arar case that I've collected since the last time I wrote about it. Arar is the Canadian citizen who was deported by American officals to Syria, where he was tortured and imprisoned for ten months. I'll have more about that soon, but there's an item that popped up just this evening that I'll pass along right now.

The term for what the Americans did to Arar is extraordinary rendition. A Kossack (member of Daily Kos) named KatherineR defines it for us.

"Extraordinary rendition" is the euphemism we use for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation. As one intelligence official described it in the Washington Post, "We don't kick the sh*t out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the sh*t out of them."

It's a violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Degrading and Inhuman Treatment but, as KatherineR reports, there's a loophole in American law that allows it if the receiving government, such as Syria, provides "assurances" that the deportee won't be mistreated.

It seems a loophole isn't good enough for the Bush administration. The following is from an email KatherineR received from a Democratic Congressman's staffer regarding a provision that's been inserted, or perhaps hidden would be a better word, in legislation that's been introduced in the House of Representatives in response to the 9/11 commission report.

The provision would require the Secretary of Homeland Security to issue new regulations to exclude from the protection of the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, any suspected terrorist - thereby allowing them to be deported or transferred to a country that may engage in torture.

Are you planning a trip south in the near future? Is there anything in your background that would cause American law enforcement officials to take a second look at you? Because what this says is that what happened to Maher Arar is about to become the law of the land if the Republicans have their way (the legislation was introduced by Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert). There won't be anything extraordinary about rendition anymore.

Now check out this part:

The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish "by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured," would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary's regulations, and would free the Secretary to deport or remove terrorist suspects to any country in the world at will - even countries other than the person's home country or the country in which they were born.

How is someone being held in detention supposed to provide clear and convincing evidence that he or she will be mistreated? Particularly if the country in question is one unknown to the detainee. It says "any country in the world". They're declaring that all they have to do is hang the "suspected terrorist" label on you and they can do anything they want, and do it by executive fiat since the courts have no jurisdiction to review the decision.

This isn't law yet but it well could be. And if it becomes law, can you say Travel Alert?

Update - 4:00 pm, Sept. 29, 2004:
I don't know if the traditional media is on this story but the blogosphere sure is. I wondered last night if the KatherineR quoted above is the same person who used to post at Obsidian Wings. It turns out she is and she got one of her former blogmates to put this story up as a guest post. Aside from asking Americans to contact their elected representatives and express their opposition to this particular bit of insanity, she asked other bloggers to spread the word and link back to her post. As of this writing, she's got 28 trackbacks. It's about to be 29. It would be neat if bloggers helped stop this.