Can We Pursue Terrorists Without Becoming Like Them?

clipped from www.alternet.org From torture to warrantless wiretapping, the Bush administration's approach to terrorism has defied legal standards at all levels. Maher Arar's story illustrates the key problems with the Bush administration's approach to terrorism and how it has defied legal standards at all levels. In the United States, the administration suspended key civil liberties. It imprisoned over 5,000 foreign nationals, subjected 80,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants to fingerprinting and registration, sent 30,000 "national security letters "every year to U.S. businesses demanding information about their customers, and justified the large-scale, warrantless wiretapping of citizens. It denied the right of habeas corpus to both American and non-American detainees and plans to continue to restrict the legal rights of terrorism suspects by trying them in military tribunals rather than civilian courts. At the international level, the administration rationalized the use of torture and rendition.