Elliot recently said the following about torture, which I'd like to expound upon:

Real Americans don't torture prisoners. Period.

As you might suspect, this brought about a fairly lively discussion.  The whole torture debate brings up lots of issues.  There is the question about what is and what is not torture.  There is the issue about rendition to other countries.  There is the issue about rights we give to citizens versus non-citizens in our Constitution.  It's all intellectual slight of hand that people use to avoid tough decisions.  It's all done in order to avoid the law.  If torture were perfectly legal, then why don't we do it in this country?  Why do we have to send them to Jordan, or any other country to do this?

The fact of the matter is that we know there is something wrong with it, and that's why we hide it, and ship people off to other countries to do it.  After all... the good guys don't torture people... and we don't want to pretend like we're not the good guys.  But besides that, let's look at some of the other slight of hand that people perform when it comes to this issue... like rendition without the writ of habeas corpus.  Last year I wrote about a case of a Canadian citizen who was mistaken for a terrorist, apprehended in a New York airport and then shipped off to Jordan.  No hearing.  No nothing.  Just off to Jordan for 10 months where he was held without hearing, questions brutally, and tortured.  By the way, did I mention he was completely and totally innocent?

Of course, the slight of hand folks will immediately argue that he wasn't an American citizen, therefore he had no Constitutional rights like we do.  First of all, I would argue that to be completely incorrect, as the 14th Amendment applies the majority of the Constitution to anyone within our jurisdiction, whether a citizen or not.  But more importantly, without a hearing before a judge, how do you know he's not a citizen?  This is one of the most fundamental aspects of the 4th and 5th Amendments.  Any person being held by the government has a right to a hearing to question the validity of their detainment.  Are we simply to always believe the police in every respect?  Shall we just abandon trial by jury all together?

Had this man had the most basic of hearings, he could have provided evidence that he was not the man in question, and that he'd never even been to Afghanistan where they claimed.  Actually, he wouldn't have had to provide anything.  The government would have had to prove the basic part of its case first, but some people don't even want the government to hurdle that low bar anymore.  Did he have any rights as a Canadian citizen due to treaty requirements?  Who knows, since he never had a chance to stand before a judge and say, "Hi, I'm Canadian."  Had any of these things happened, detainment and torture would have been avoided... problem solved.

But they'll cry... This is terrorism!  We don't have time for all of that!  Sure it's about terrorism... only if you caught a terrorist.  But nobody proved that.  And in fact, the government has gotten that wrong several times before.  If we should have learned anything from history, it's that when government has an excuse to do anything the easy way, it will do it as often as possible, and to the detriment of it's citizens.  The consequences of allowing this to be done easily are far too great to let it continue.

This isn't about torture.  This is about your right to stand before a judge and say the government was wrong.