Talking Rights

Sotomayor was one of the appeals judges to hear the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was suing the US government over his extraordinary rendition in 2002. Suspected wrongly of being a terrorist, Arar was detained at JFK, then flown to Syria, where he underwent 10 months and 10 days of torture.
Unfortinately, the [...]

There is quite a kerfluffle going on now about Obama’s position on extraordinary rendition.
The Los Angeles Times recently reported that “under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States. Current [...]

Yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) gave a magnificent speech on the Senate floor in opposition to the FISA bill before that body. Among its other reprehensible provisions, the bill would give retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that fed information to the National Security Administration, without judicial warrant and without notifying the individuals.
But Dodd went much [...]