Germany (catch all, incl. terrorism)

[marct]

Hi 120mm,

Note that I said there needs to be a mechanism for this. That mechanism would need to include compensation for real loss of income, inconvenience and may even be punitive in nature (accounting for pain/suffering).

I think that this lack of a streamlined mechanism is one of the problems; lawsuits just don't, to my mind, cut it. Every time we see a lawsuit, it just creates too many problems by re-interpreting the legal situation. In the Arar case, I think a lawsuit was justified since the RCMP certain appear to have acted in a manner that was, and is, illegal. I would honestly like to see a much more clearcut mechanism for detention / investigation.

On the other hand, when we pick up a bad guy and then return him/her into the wild for whatever reason, we need to avoid rewarding them for "not being prosecutable just yet."

Yupper. I think that clearer legal guidelines would help immeasurably as well in making the decision to pick them up.

I think the phrase "kidnapped" is being thrown around pretty loosely, here, as well.

In the Arar case and in the el-Masri case, it is the correct legal terminology. Under existing Canadian law, Arar could have been quite legally picked up and detained for questioning for an indefinite period. This would not have been "kidnapping". Instead, the RCMP contacted the CIA and gt them to do the dirty work. What always bothered me about the Arar case was that the RCMP didn't have the guts to arrest him themselves. If they believed he was guilty, they should have investigated and arrested him. If they thought there was an imminent danger, they could have held him indefinitely. They didn't.

I would not use the word "arrested" because these men were taken into a system that was explicitly extra-legal and were not accorded due process. Also, given the warrants issued in both Italy and Germany, it appears that the local and national authorities were not made aware (odd that this does not appear to have occurred in Canada, where the local authorities were complicit and have recently paid millions in compensation to Arar). "Detained" sounds, frankly, a bit too neutral given the ultimate fate of these and many other men. We did not take them to Syria for interrogation of the usual sort, for instance.

I have to admit that a lot of my anger over these cases is based around the breach of law at the same time as we keep hearing rhetoric about the rule of law. Situations like this just serve to reduce overall social trust in government agencies. Sure, there are times when a government agent, LE, Intel, military, etc., will have to break the law in order to achieve their mission. This should end up as a situation where the law then comes under scrutiny as well as their actions; for example, arresting someone without proof and sweating them to stop a bomb plot. It's the legal concept of "immanent danger" that should be used to decide whether or not to breach the law, not convenience, and those breaches should be examined afterwards.

Marc