Trading Rights For Security Can't Be Done, Scholar Says

She was to have addressed the conference last night with Jim Judd, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but Mr. Judd abruptly cancelled his appearance, citing events in Ottawa. Previously censored portions of the report of the public inquiry into the Arar case were released Thursday. They showed that Canadian officials suspected Mr. Arar was to be sent by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to the Middle East to be tortured after the RCMP gave unverified intelligence material to the CIA. Prof. Macklin said the courts and legislators have bought into the notion that "we can trade off the right to fair hearing in the name of security, we can trade off the right of access to [a detained] individual in the name of security, we can trade off the right of an individual to know the case against him out of a concern for national security because we can't tell him for fear this will endanger operations or embarrass us in terms of exposing relations with other countries." The Supreme Court - in the case establishing what is known as the Suresh exception - has even permitted the deportation of someone who is likely to be tortured. "The Supreme Court clearly meant it to be exceptional but the government has seen it as a loophole," Prof. Macklin said. She asked how torture and indefinite detention enhances Canada's national security. With persons likely to be tortured, "there's not even [been] a claim of a cost-benefit analysis. It's not like you're torturing to get the ticking bomb. It's just that we would rather send this person back and have that person face torture than keep them imprisoned in Canada. There's not even a trade-off there. It seems to me you can only come to a conclusion like that if you don't accept the person as fully human." Prof. Macklin called the trade-off of human rights for security a false market metaphor. "But it is seductive. It is especially seductive when you think it is other people's rights that are going to be given up for your security, which is too often what can happen." http://www.theglobeandmail.com:80/servlet/story/LAC.20070811.COUCH11/TPStory/National [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on August 13, 2007]

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