As some of you may know, Maher Arar — the Syrian-born Canadian who was detained by U.S. immigration officials at New York’s JFK airport on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda and then subsequently deported (more accurately, “rendered”) to Syria, where he was held and tortured for a year before finally signing a false confession — is finally having his say in a New York court, where the atrocious anti-terror policies of the U.S. government — some of them, anyway — are on trial in his civil case.
Vivek Krishnamurthy has the story, and some excellent commentary, over at The Reaction. This story isn’t getting much play in the U.S. media (it’s been on the front pages here), but it deserves wider attention, and it raises this fundamental question: How far are we willing to sacrifice individual liberty for the sake of collective security?
To take the Arar case, are we willing to sanction the detention and torture of an innocent man? In my view, the U.S. clearly went too far — so far as violate the principles of justice embodied in the Constitution.