The Supreme Court disgraced itself on Monday by torpedoing the appeal of Maher Arar, the Canadian who was kidnapped at John F. Kennedy International Airport and sent by the U.S. government to Syria for torturing.
The Canadian government has publicly apologized to Arar for providing false information to the U.S. government about Arar’s suspicious connections. The U.S. government has refused to admit it did anything wrong in shipping Arar to the Middle East to be tortured at U.S. behest.
The Obama administration vigorously opposed Arar’s motion to get justice and to discover the details of the U.S. government’s role in his horror trip. Obama’s Justice Department told the court that permitting discovery in Arar’s case could result in unfairly exposing or scrutinizing “the motives and sincerity of the United States officials who concluded that petitioner could be removed to Syria.”
Now we also have sovereign immunity for the reputation of torturers and torture enablers???
This goes beyond “shoot the messenger.” There simply won’t be any messengers permitted. The Supremes should wear bags over their heads when appearing in public.
Lawrence, they are already wearing bat suits.
How much more goofy can they get?
That’s a good one!
Christ on a crutch, the U.S. government argues–and the USSC buys into it–that belief in “the motives and sincerity of the United States officials” is somehow vital to the nation’s security? If we question said motives and sincerity, it will cause the deflector screens to drop?
To think, I used to use the “clap harder” metaphor as sarcasm against the statists. Every day they place themselves further out of the reach of sarcasm!
Alpowolf, I just don’t understand how the Statists get any oxygen to the brain, at least as far as where their heads seem to be.
The argument in that Jus. Dept. brief captures the soul of what govt. has become….
There is nothing worse than scrutinizing the motives and sincerity of government officials. Apparently scrutiny comes in two different flavors – fair and unfair with unfair being defined as anything greater than no scrutiny at all.
Of course the torturers need sovereign immunity, you Big Silly Author. Otherwise, how can you expect them to do their jobs??? Sheeeesh….
Though my personal favorite is that I *still* bump into people who’ll wonder about how stupid the Germans could have been to let the Nazis do what THEY were doing….
“motives and sincerity of United States Officials”…now thats rich. this assumes that the individuals who assume their roles as Federal agents retain and utilize their own sense of ethics and morality. Well, i hate to break this to all the pollyannas who assert government is a stopgap, it suspends ethical actions and morality..like corporations do, in favor of that hypothetical construct known as the Corporation or Government. they operate on myth and best intentions gone ferklempt.