According to Nat Hentoff's column, Liberty Beat, Arar was flown to Syria where he was held in solitary confinement and tortured:
... in a three-by-six-foot cell ("like a grave," he said). He became, internationally, one of the best-known victims of the CIA's extraordinary renditions""the sending of suspected terrorists to countries known for torturing their prisoners.Arar, subsequently released, has not been charged with a crime --by Syria or the United States, which refuses to cooperate with any investigation. The Canadian Parliament, however, has begun an investigation to include a public inquiry.
The implications of this case are enormous. If Judge Trager's ruling is allowed to stand, American officials will have a "....green light to do to others what they did to Arar." Any crime could then be committed in the name of national security.
The concept of "Separation of Powers" is given a NeoCon treatment by an activist conservative judge:
...the coordinate branches of our government [executive and legislative] are those in whom the Constitution imposes responsibility for our foreign affairs and national security. Those branches have the responsibility to determine whether judicial oversight is appropriate.Hentoff appropriately asks whether or not it is the duty of the judiciary itself to determine whether judicial oversight is or is not appropriate. Here's my opinion for what it's worth: the Federal Judiciary since Marbury v Madison has always determined when judicial oversight is appropriate.
