On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by Maher Arar, a Canadian national who was sent to Syria and tortured after arriving in New York from a vacation.
The court did not comment Monday in ending Syrian-born Maher Arar’s quest to sue top U.S. officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Arar says he was mistaken for a terrorist when he was changing planes in New York on his way home to Canada, a year after the 2001 terrorist attacks. He was instead sent to Syria, where he claims he was tortured.
Lower courts dismissed Arar’s lawsuit, which asserts the U.S. purposely sent him to Syria to be tortured. Syria has denied he was tortured.
The Canadian government agreed to pay Arar $10 million and apologized to him for its role in the case.
Yesterday’s New York Times reported that Yahya Wehelie, a US citizen who was on his way home from Yemen, is in custody in Cairo after F.B.I. agents discovered that he was on a no-fly list.
For six weeks, Mr. Wehelie has been in limbo in the Egyptian capital. He and his parents say he has no radical views, despises Al Qaeda and merely wants to get home to complete his education and get a job.
But after many hours of questioning by F.B.I. agents, he remains on the no-fly list. When he offered to fly home handcuffed and flanked by air marshals, Mr. Wehelie said, F.B.I. agents turned him down.
“The lady told me that Columbus sailed the ocean blue a long time ago when there were no planes,” Mr. Wehelie said in a telephone interview from Cairo. “I’m an innocent American in exile, and I have no way to get home.”
The common thread uniting these two situations is silence. By refusing to hear Mr. Arar’s case, the Supreme Court tacitly acknowledges the government’s argument (a carryover from the Bush administration) that any matter which could jeopardize national security does not belong in court. In Mr. Wehelie’s case, the FBI invoked a policy that precludes it from discussing persons on watch lists or no fly lists.
By continuing his predecessor’s policies, President Obama is responding to the pressure placed upon him by recent terrorist threats. But at what cost? Do fundamental rights to due process stop applying as soon as the government decides you aren’t worthy of them?