From the NYT:
"The nation’s courts continue to grapple with the abuses committed by President Bush’s administration in the name of fighting terrorism."
"The case involves Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was in the United States legally. He was declared an enemy combatant in mid-2003 and has been held in a Navy brig since then."
"The other, equally notorious case is being heard on Tuesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan. It involves Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian with no ties to terrorism who became a victim of the Bush team’s lawless policy of “extraordinary rendition” — the outsourcing of interrogations to foreign governments known to torture prisoners.
Mr. Arar’s ordeal began in 2002, when he was seized by federal agents as he tried to change planes on his way home to Canada from a family vacation. After being held incommunicado in solitary confinement and subjected to harsh interrogation without proper access to a lawyer, he was “rendered” to Syria, where he was tortured. He was locked up for almost a year in a dank underground cell the size of a grave before he was finally let go."
