September 19, 2006

Policy v. Law

by Sean Sirrine

There are many times and many places where my esteemed colleagues and I can argue over the finer points of law which form this great nation. It is possible to argue that some of what the Bush administration is doing that seems clearly illegal may in fact be legal. For just a moment I want to step away from this legal back-and-forth and point to a common sense viewpoint that we should all agree on. This may be hard for some of you older folk out there because you'll have to remember a "fairy-tale" you heard as a child, but I'm sure you'll remember "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

What can that possibly have to do with our policy on terrorism?

Here is a snippet from a news story released today that details an opinion from a Canadian commission:

But O'Connor recommends that in the future, information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.

Most of the judge's 23 policy recommendations centered on the RCMP and emphasized the need to improve the force's internal policies for national security investigations and the sharing of information with other countries.

[link]

[Just so you know, the commission found that we had shipped off a Canadian national to Syria where he was tortured and that this man had no connection to terrorists.]

We have just made it harder to receive information from a country that shares a border with the United States. No policy that makes it harder to get information on potential terrorists is a good policy. To hell with the question of whether it is legal or not, what is legal is not always right.

September 19, 2006 04:27 PM | TrackBack
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