You may remember Abdallah Higazy, an Egyptian citizen who was held by the FBI after 9/11 because a hand-held aircraft transciever was found in his hotel room. The FBI extracted a false confession by threatening to turn him over to the Egyptian authorities. The Egyptian security services not only torture their suspects, they also arrest the suspect's family and torture them.
So he confessed. The FBI brought charges and then a pilot showed up at the hotel and did the "Dude, where's my radio" bit. The FBI dismissed the charges against Higazy and let him go.
No surprise, he sued both the government and the FBI agent who extracted the false confession. The district court let the FBI agent out of the case. Higazy appealed and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal.
Then it gets interesting: A day after the Second Circuit released its opinion, it retracted it and released an edited one. Unfortunately for the Second Circuit's clerk, once things are released to the Internet, they don't go away. Or, as an old legal phrase puts it: You cannot unring a bell.
Ask yourself if that is the way this country should be operating. Ask yourself if getting people to falsely confess by threatening to torture them and their families, whether directly or by proxy, is what we should stand for as a country.
At the end of the day, if this is the way things are done, are we really any better than the Soviet Union?
Addendum: The Washington Post now has this story.
(Thanks to TFS Magnum)
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2 comments:
There is a reason why I have a category on my blog titled "Soviet America".
Meet the new enemy, same as the old enemy -- just relocated to a new continent.
I should have made categories, but I didn't when I started and now that I have north of 500 entries, it'd be too much like work.
Anyway, it more and more seems to be that we have more to fear from our government than we do from an external enemy.
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