From the BBC:

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Khaled el-Masri aimed to sue former CIA chief George Tenet and other officials for their alleged role in the "extraordinary rendition" programme. Mr el-Masri says he was picked up in Macedonia in 2003 and flown to Kabul, Afghanistan, where he alleges torture. The judge did not rule on the truth of the allegations, but said letting the case proceed might endanger security.

The judge in this instance is refusing to hear the case because it might expose some state secrets. Considering the practice of extraordinary rendition is illegal on its own merits, I think the judge refuses to hear the case because it might provide some legal basis for prosecuting the Bush Administration.

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I found http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/themes/redefining.html not long ago - shared it with a friend, they said "disgusting." Finally it comes out exactly how the Bush administration found it possible to say that inducing hypothermia is a perfectly legal form of interrogation. Disgusting!

I find it interesting that in this specific instance the Federal government argues that the Constitution takes precedent over the Convention Against Torture treaty but when it comes to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances the constitution looses according to Missouri v. Holland which found that "the treaties clause of the Constitution (Article VI, clause 2), sometimes known as the "supremacy clause," makes treaties the "supreme law of the land", co-equal in status to the Constitution itself." and that the Constitution already prohibits what Bush did through the Eighth Amendment which reads "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Show me where that applies only to American Citizens and I'll give you a cookie.

From Brian J. Foley via JURIST

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For almost four years, Americans collectively have "ho-hummed" news about the prisoners caged at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO). Torture? Big deal. Hunger strike? What hunger strike? -- most people don’t even know about it. So it’s no surprise that Americans don’t care that the tribunals that determine whether the prisoners are “enemy combatants,” and the tribunals that will try some of them for particular crimes, all deny prisoners the full set of procedural rights that US and international law offer. Americans’ indifference comes in large part because the arguments saying that denying process to “enemy combatants” is bad policy and illegal have failed to appeal to the public’s self-interest. For example, most of the policy arguments against this lack of process have been the following: Giving process to these prisoners is just the right thing to do morally. Our failure to do so shows we’re hypocritical. US leaders have been extolling American democracy over other forms of government because it purportedly preserves individual rights and freedoms; the separate-and-unequal justice system at GTMO undercuts such claims. Our denying process to these prisoners will cause other countries to deny process to our soldiers if they are captured. We should accord process because one of us might be jailed by mistake, and we would like fair process to protect us. These arguments are all valid. However, the problem is that they are either sentimental or unrealistic – and most Americans sense that. Americans like thinking they’re the world’s nicest, most democratic people, but they’ll abandon that warm and fuzzy feeling if being nice and democratic will increase their risk of being blown up by terrorists. Americans don’t worry about being hypocrites, because “everything changed” after 9/11; we’re fighting a “different kind of war,” and history will judge us as prudent, they believe. Most Americans know that our soldiers probably won’t be captured: enemies are barely able to kill our troops, much less capture them. And as we saw with Jessica Lynch, we can just go rescue them anyway. Moreover, what country would dare mistreat US troops and incur our (perhaps nuclear-tipped) wrath? As for the classic argument that we need rigorous legal process in case we’re arrested by mistake, well, most Americans know that it’s highly unlikely they themselves will ever be caged at GTMO: most Americans aren’t radical Muslims. The legal arguments against GTMO (that the US is violating US and/or international law) haven’t interested the public, either. The arguments are too technical, and the number and length of court opinions, of differing opinions by judges, and the number of scholarly articles and op eds on this issue let Americans think the arguments on both sides are plausible. There has been no sweeping, landmark Supreme Court decision thoroughly vindicating one side or the other. Instead, courts are considering whether the US can, legally, deny a certain level of process in general; whether specific processes are permissible; and which procedural safeguards, if any, are required. Every lower court ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court, and the meaning of the Supreme Court’s decisions will be debated in subsequent cases. Settling this area of law will take years. Ultimately, it’s not clear to most Americans that the US isn’t following the law at GTMO. Indeed, if torture seems justifiable, then denying various courtroom procedures can seem justifiable, too. The argument that the US should “follow the law” (and set an example for the rest of the world) is sentimental, too. Our leaders can act with impunity. No one can stop the US from doing whatever it wants to do, and why lead by example when we can force other countries to do what we want them to do? GTMO appears to reflect what most Americans want: to be safe from terrorism. Most Americans believe that the lax rules for GTMO tribunals are necessary to convict terrorists. If we used our regular court system, the terrorists would not be convicted, because the evidence we have against them doesn’t meet the necessary high standards. If a terrorist walks free, he’s a ticking time bomb. The survival instinct trumps sentimentality. But the belief that lax court rules can protect the public from terrorism is wrong. The most powerful argument for giving prisoners at GTMO more legal process is that the weak rules there now can’t protect us from terrorism. Weak standards cannot help us determine, reliably, if the people we’ve locked up or released are the right people, because the rules rely on notoriously unreliable forms of evidence: hearsay, coerced confessions, and evidence kept secret from the accused. Garbage in, garbage out. Also, the lax rules give no incentive to the FBI, CIA, military, and police to conduct serious investigations. Why bother, when they can “win” a case at the tribunal by pounding a “confession” out of a prisoner? In this way, we’ll fail to develop the anti-terrorism investigative abilities we need to thwart terrorism. As time goes by, we’ll become weaker rather than stronger; like unused muscles, our skills will atrophy. In a few years, we might lack any meaningful anti-terror investigative abilities at all. We might merely have goon squads who beat “confessions” out of people. We can reverse this slide by requiring that terrorists be tried under rigorous rules of evidence and criminal procedure. That would cause our police and intelligence officials to work harder to investigate, to get solid evidence. Much more would be learned about terrorists and their networks. We could also be more confident that the people released were not dangerous. (I discussed these benefits of rigorous process in a previous commentary in JURIST's Forum.) GTMO is a public safety issue. It’s time for Congress to act. We should try the GTMO prisoners under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which applies to POWs. Better, we should try the prisoners in our federal courts, where there is more process – and thus a better chance for accuracy in convictions. When Americans understand that using stronger rules at GTMO is not about being good world citizens or being nice to prisoners, but about giving ourselves the strongest anti-terrorism tactic we can – vigorous, hard-nosed police and intelligence work – they will see the folly of maintaining our separate-and-unequal justice system. Strong procedural rules at GTMO will require our government to work for us, and the increased transparency will make our government accountable to us. GTMO is about our own survival – something Americans of all political stripes can agree on. Brian J. Foley is an assistant professor of law at Florida Coastal School of Law. Email him at brian_j_foley@yahoo.com

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By Richard Waddington:

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Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons. "Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody," Amnesty said in its 47-page report. It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight," much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques. "The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish," said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering. The U.N. committee, whose experts carry out periodic reviews of countries signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture, is scheduled to begin consideration of the United States on Friday. The last U.S. review was in 2000. It said in November it was seeking U.S. answers to questions including whether Washington operated secret detention centers abroad and whether President George W. Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases. The committee also wanted to know whether a December 2004 memorandum from the U.S. Attorney General's office, reserving torture for "extreme" acts of cruelty, was compatible with the global convention barring all forms of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. UNTIL THE END In its own submission to the committee, published late last year, Washington justified the holding of thousands of foreign terrorism suspects in detention centers abroad, including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, on the grounds that it was fighting a war that was still not over. "Like other wars, when they start, we do not know when they will end. Still, we may detain combatants until the end of the war," it said. The U.S. human rights image has taken a battering abroad over a string of scandals involving the sexual and physical abuse of detainees held by American forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. In its submission, Washington did not mention alleged secret detention centers. Amnesty listed a series of incidents in recent years involving torture of detainees in U.S. custody, noting the heaviest sentence given to perpetrators was five months in jail. This was the same punishment you could get for stealing a bicycle in the United States, it added. "Although the U.S. government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Goering, referring to the testimony of torture victims in the report.

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TortureProtest.org is proud to present a new movie about torture: No More Torture. The movie features information on extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo Bay, and has pictures from a protest against torture.

Please share the movie with your friends and distribute it if you can. Anything to get the word out helps!