From HuffPo's link, I saw this Times Online piece from the UK.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...
US says it has right to kidnap British citizens
This is really "great". You have to read it to believe it. Yosemite Sam is clearly in charge. I'll pull a few excerpts for comment.
"A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it. ... Until now it was commonly assumed that US law permitted kidnapping only in the 'extraordinary rendition' of terrorist suspects. The American government has for the first time made it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington."
If you look at the specific Tollman case discussed at the link, where "we" tried to get Canada to turn the guy over to us, you can imagine from there the implications for international conduct. More after the jump.
Here's another excerpt:
"The Tollmans, who control the Red Carnation hotel group and are resident in London, are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion. They have been fighting extradition through the British courts. ... Tollman’s nephew. Gavin Tollman was the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005. ... In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities. An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded Canadian officials to detain him. He wanted the Canadians to drive Tollman to the border to be handed over. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days. A Canadian judge ordered his release, ruling that the US Justice Department had set a 'sinister trap' and wrongly bypassed extradition rules. Tollman returned to Britain."
Try to speculate on some more instances, using some of what we know about extraordinary rendition as a starting point. It certainly seems that in the case of terrorist suspects, the US has been able to get members of foreign intelligence services to break the rules. But so how does this work? Unless we get a third-party country to do the dirty work for us, doesn't the act of kidnapping on foreign soil mean we are now committed to a pattern of intentional conduct on foreign soil that would be deemed a criminal conspiracy by many nations?
Frankly I don't see the administration's arguments as so far-fetched and I can see their legal basis, but this sort of barbarism is supposed to cringe from the light of day, not embrace it. We are not talking about Hollywood villains with murderous intent anymore -- the targets can be businessmen with shady practices. And they would only be "suspects" when apprehended. I think we should be exploring this. I invite anyone to write a diary better than this...I just wanted to call it to our attention.
PHIL :)