david cole

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals just dismissed a landmark lawsuit filed by a Canadian victim of “extraordinary rendition” against former U.S. officials, ruling that torture victims have no right to compensation from the U.S. government, even if U.S. officials were complicit in their treatment.
Maher Arar is a Canadian citizen who was seized in 2002 [...]

The explosive inspectors general report released on Friday makes one thing increasingly clear: the Bush White House knew that it was probably breaking the law.
From the report itself, John Yoo’s Office of Legal Counsel memo — and the lightning-fast reporting of Spencer Ackerman, Marc Ambinder and others on Friday — we now know that President [...]

A letter to the White House asks the president not to expand a controversial Bush-era policy.

So just who are those “civil liberties groups” that have encouraged the Obama administration to issue an executive order creating a system of prolonged preventive detention?
As Spencer wrote today, someone in the administration told ProPublica’s Dafna Linzner and The Washington Post’s Peter Finn that yes, civil liberties groups support the idea of an order that [...]

In a move that spells nothing but bad news for Detroit’s struggling automakers, Toyota announced yesterday that it’s suspended plans to produce its Prius hybrid in the United States.
Why is that bad news for the Big Three? Because there’s been this line of argument that Ford, General Motors and Chrysler would be performing splendidly right [...]

Lawyers for Maher Arar, a 34-year-old Syrian-born Canadian who was arrested at JFK airport, taken to Syria, interrogated and tortured, argue he has a right to sue for damages. If the Second Circuit sides with Arar, the government could face many more lawsuits.

The case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen arrested in New York and sent to Syria to be interrogated under torture, will be re-heard today by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, sitting en banc.
As I reported earlier, the 34-year-old computer consultant of Syrian descent was apprehended by U.S. authorities in 2002 [...]