Justice is blind (and deaf and dumb)

Bob Herbert in his NY Times' op-ed writes (behind subscription wall) today about the dismissal of Maher Arar's civil suit for damages against the U.S. Arar is the innocent Canadian who was kidnapped by US authorities at JFK airport while in transit from or to (I've forgotten whether he was coming or going) Canada. He was then sent to be tortured in Syria under the extraordinary rendition program. After almost a year, the Syrians released him, having learned nothing of value from his torture.

He filed suit against the U.S., and last week, District Judge David Trager dismissed the suit, saying that it could not proceed because government secrets might be revealed during the discovery phase. But, it gets worse. As Herbert reports, one of the reasons he gave was the following:

"One need not have much imagination to contemplate the negative effect on our relations with Canada if discovery were to proceed in this case and were it to turn out that certain high Canadian officials had, despite public denials, acquiesced in Arar's removal to Syria."

I'm sorry, but I don't see why the US Courts need to prevent the lies of Canadian officials from being exposed. In the long run, that's much more likely to promote good relations with Canada than damage them.

This is not Trager's first mistake, by the way. He is the judge to jurymandered the jury in the Crown Heights trial to "reflect the racial diversity of the community." That decision was overturned on appeal. And, no, he is not a Bush appointee. He was appointed by Clinton.