Sunday, December 02, 2007

You have the right to shut up and get in the trunk.


(CC News) -- In a stunning development in international policing, the United States has just announced that it has the right to kidnap citizens of other nations:

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

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.

When pressed in the House of Commons on whether this newfound American legal power extended to Canadian citizens as well, Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General Rob Nicholson replied, "Um ... I don't know if they can do that. Can they do that? Maybe you should ask someone with the authority to make that decision. What's that? Me? No way, not me! Really? Neat!"

Nicholson promised he would get back to the questioner with a reply as soon as possible, then sat down and turned to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, saying, "Did you hear that? I get to make the decision! That is so cool! Oh, man, is this the greatest job in the world or what?"

In unrelated news, several MPs who were just about to vote in the "Stupidest Fucking MP in all of Canada" contest were seen tearing up their ballots and hastily scribbling new ones.

8 comments:

Frank Frink said...

Rendition! It's not just for terrorists anymore.

Who needs pesky things like extradition treaties, and territorial or judicial sovreignty.

Would love to hear how Stockwell spins this one if Marc Emery gets a 'visit' shortly from a couple US Justice Dept. heavies whio say "Don't worry, we're just gonna take you for a little ride".

Southern Quebec said...

This has interesting implications. If Amerika can kidnap citizens of other countries and bring them to Amerika for 'justice', then the reverse should be true. This would give us the opportunity to go after the two cowboy pilots that dropped the 500lb bomb on the four Canadian soldiers on manslaughter charges.(Send in Stockwell on his ski-doo to grab them!)Maybe we could go into Guantanimo and grab Khadar. We could go after President Numbnuts for human rights violations. It could be just like the Wild West again.

Ti-Guy said...

...then the reverse should be true.

That's not how American Exceptionalism (Peace Be Upon It) works.

I'm happy to see that, in the case cited in the article (Gavin Tollman), a Canadian judge didn't go along with the request to "render" him to the US. I wonder how much longer that will last, once Harpy gets through purging the judiciary of activist judges?

Seriously...who the fuck do these people think they are?

Southern Quebec said...

Seriously...who the fuck do these people think they are?

They are AMERICANS! Hello!

Unknown said...

I've always said it wouldn't be much longer before the U.S. was invading us...it just seems they're going to invade us one citizen at a time.

You know, I'm really all for doubling and tripling the size of Canada's military and arming them to the teeth -- and posting them all along the 49th parallel, facing south.

The Seer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Seer said...

1. When this issue is presented in a US Court, it is presented as a question of "personal jurisdiction," i. e., whether the Court has legal power to try the person before the court. US Courts as a general rule do not enquire into how people are brought before the court.

2. If Maher Arrar had been brought into a US Court, he would have arrived in one piece and left in one piece.

3. The US Courts face a prudential problem here:

Under US Constitutional law, evidence obtained by or through an unlawful arrest is suppressed — it cannot be introduced in Court against the defendant. The police complain about this all the time. The Courts are able to handle these complaints.

The US Courts could not handle the complaints that would arise if a person who is in fact guilty could obtain immunity from prosecution because the arrest was illegal.

Kidnap-type arrests pose a real problem for US Courts: If the Courts agree to consider dismissing cases that are started with unlawful arrests, the Courts will lose that battle and may well lose the exclusionary rule with it. The solution the US Courts have adopted it to ignore the kidnapping issue to save the exclusionary rule.

Saving the exclusionary rule produces more fairness and equity for far more persons in US Courts than a rule against kidnapping would afford. This is vitally important to "US persons" who face prosecution in US Courts.

It's a trade-off. In the balance, it is very rare — absent a Maher Arrar kind of circumstance — when US Governmental agencies actually do this kind of thing.

E in MD said...

They are AMERICANS! Hello!

By Southern Quebec, at 7:42 AM


*channeling Archie Bunker*

ey! You betta shaddap up dere or we'll come up dere for you next!

So is it still Godwin to call Bush Hitler yet with rules like these? He can do whatever he wants and you have to play along or else?

I just posted about this in my Lj earlier... I cannot fathom why the Brits haven't told us to bugger off yet. Apparently we've decided that the only law that matters is American law and then only so far as it applies to everybody but the people in his cadre of lunatics.

This should in my opinion be a big enough indicator for all non-American nations to completely withdraw support of the US until such time as George W. Bush is removed from office.

I apologize to my British brethren and to everybody else. America isn't America anymore. We've been building this nation for over two hundred years and it's been completely destroy in seven. Not by an external enemy but by itself. I didn't vote for this particular dictator he was thrust upon me and I have spent a good hunk of my time trying to convince the cowards in the Congress that he's done more than enough to merit impeachment and prison time. Nobody wants to listen.