There's a reason we have laws, mr. president

This is why accused terrorists need some form of hearing. How truly disturbing. And yet, Junior and the Neocons press on, pushing for a system in diametric opposition to the same legal principles our country was founded upon.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14897315/?GT1=8506

TORONTO, Sept. 18 - Canadian intelligence officials passed false warnings and bad information to American agents about a Muslim Canadian citizen, after which U.S. authorities secretly whisked him to
Syria, where he was tortured, a judicial report found Monday.

The report, released in Ottawa, was the result of a 2 1/2-year inquiry that represented one of the first public investigations into mistakes made as part of the United States' "extraordinary rendition" program,
which has secretly spirited suspects to foreign countries forinterrogation by often brutal methods.
The inquiry, which focused on the Canadian intelligence services, found that agents who were under pressure to find terrorists after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, falsely labeled an Ottawa computer
consultant, Maher Arar, as a dangerous radical. They asked U.S. authorities to put him and his wife, a university economist, on the al-Qaeda "watchlist," without justification, the report said.

Arar was also listed as "an Islamic extremist individual" who was in the Washington area on Sept. 11. The report concluded that he had no involvement in Islamic extremism and was on business in San Diego that
day, said the head of the inquiry commission, Ontario Justice Dennis O'Connor.

Coffin-sized dungeon

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced
to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he never has been -- and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

O'Connor concluded "categorically there is no evidence" that Arar did anything wrong or was a security threat.

Although the report centered on Canadian actions, the counsel for the commission, Paul Cavalluzzo, said the results show that the U.S. practice of renditions "ought to be reviewed."
"This is really the first report in the Western world that has had access to all of the government documents we wanted and saw the practice of extraordinary rendition in full color," he said in an interview from Ottawa. "The ramifications were that an innocent Canadian was tortured, his life was put upside down, and it set him
back years and years."

Arar, who came to Canada from Syria when he was 17, said in Ottawa that he was thankful that he had been vindicated. He expressed surprise and anger at learning Monday that Canadian authorities also
had asked U.S. authorities to put his wife on the al-Qaeda watchlist.

"Today Justice O'Connor has cleared my name and restored my reputation," he said at a news conference. He said the individual Canadian officials should be held accountable: "Justice requires no less."
[. . .]
Since Sept. 11, the CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people in its effort to dismantle terrorist networks. Many of them have been secretly taken by
"extraordinary rendition" to other countries, hidden from U.S. legal requirements and often subject to torture.
[. . .]