Secret, Secret, the State's got a Secret.

Been following the legal case of Khaled el-Masri, a Lebanese born German citizen, and former terrorist suspect. He claims he was,

snatched while on a trip in Macedonia, taken to Afghanistan, jailed, beaten and harassed before being set free without charge after five months.

His request?

explanation and an apology from the United States for his detention, as well as 75,000 dollars in damages.

So he files suit, goes before a Judge, the Defense (the US Government) tells judge, "Hey we'd looooove to stand trial for all this, but unfortunately we can't. See we have this stupid 'state secret' problem. Man we hate that thing, its suuuuch a hassle. Anyway, can't help you, gotta go. Let's do lunch sometime."

Mr. Masri appealed. Defense comes in, says "State Secret" which is apparently Latin for "Screw off" and the appeal was denied. Also, in the appeal we find out that he was "sodomized with an object" while in custody, and while I'm sure that great fun was had by all, that seems like torture to me.

Let's review. A man was taken into custody, denied Habeus Corpus, denied access to a lawyer, taken to a foreign nation and tortured (which is expressly against US law), loses five months of his life (and I know how I felt when I lost 90 minutes of my life when I saw Date Movie), and is then told, "thank you for traveling with the CIA, go home now." Why? Prevailing guess is that his name is similar to someone else's, namely suspected terrorist Khalid al-Masri (wrong vowel leads to hurt bowel?).

The point isn't to rail against arresting an innocent man, it happens every day, and is just part of the legal/investigative process. The problem is that Mr Masri's wild ride was entirely avoidable. If he had the rights of habeas corpus, and the right to an attorney the mistake could have been caught early, avoiding trauma to Mr Masri and embarrassment to the US Government. Somehow habeas corpus and legal representation have come to mean support for the terrorists as opposed to support for the American way. Great marketing that, but entirely wrong.