It has been widely reported through the blogosphere (by Obsidian Wings, Daily Kos, et cetera), and totally ignored by mainstream media sources, that there is an insidious law to legalize torture buried within the House bill to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

This law would make it legal for any “suspected terrorist” to be sent abroad to another country for the purposes of torture and interrogation. It is up to the accused — who is granted neither judicial review nor the right to due process — to present “clear and convincing evidence” that he will be tortured in the other country.

This is abhorrent. For the United States to actively engage in this filth, and for our own politicians to actively construct loopholes so that our government officials may circumvent international torture laws, runs against the very spirit of our nation. Torture is neither effective nor morally just, no matter who the enemy is.

So far only bloggers (and a Kuro5hin article) have covered this. The mainstream news media seems more interested in what color ties Kerry and Bush will wear to the debates. But this is a critical issue: actively torturing suspected terrorists will only diminish our reputation abroad, and will further inflame the ranks of would-be terrorists abroad.

Below is the full text of a letter I sent to my House Representative, Christopher Shays. I urge every American who reads this to copy it and email it to your local Representative. Or even better, make a phone call and read it out loud. The voices of reason and moderation must make themselves heard, loudly and clearly, or this will be an atrocious failure of our modern democracy’s inability to regulate its own behavior.

Congressman Shays,

I implore you to support Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey in his efforts to explicitly outlaw the practice of “extraordinary rendition”, in which a terrorist suspect is extradited to another country where he will be tortured. Markey’s bill can be found at http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/rendition-bill.pdf.

The torture of suspects is forbidden under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Degrading and Inhuman Treatment. But we need not depend on the U.N. for guidance on the basic moral question of whether torture of human beings is an acceptable practice. The practice of government-sponsored torture is utterly incompatable with our American ideals.

If Markey’s bill is not passed, Section 3032 and 3033 of H.R. 10, the “9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act of 2004,” introduced by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL), will effectively legalize extraordinary rendition. These sections would exclude any suspected terrorist from the protections of the U.N. Convention, therefore allowing them to be deported to a country that will engage in torture. The provision would put the burden of proof on the person being deported or rendered to establish “by clear and convincing evidence that he or she would be tortured.” This is clearly an impossible standard for a suspect being held in secret to overcome.

The law would place the power of extraordinary rendition in the hands of the Secretary of Homeland Defense. Furthermore, it would bar the courts from having jurisdiction to review the Secretary’s regulations. Much of the genius of our Constitution lies in its limits on government power. The threat of terror requires serious, aggressive countermeasures. However, it does not require that we abandon the wisdom of our fundamental principles, or the sanity of our system of checks and balances.

I would be horrified if US law were amended to allow such foul anti-American treatment of detainees and criminals, no matter how heinous their crimes. Again I ask, in the strongest possible terms, that you please support Congressman Markey’s bill.

Thank you.