This past week Maher Arar finally received two things long overdue him: over $10 million in financial compensation from the federal government for their complicity in giving him up to the US anti-terrorism machinery and ultimately to a nightmare of unjust detention in subhuman conditions for nearly a year; and more importantly, a formal apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
It is worth quoting that apology here:
"On behalf of the government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you…and your family for any role Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002 and 2003."
All of this was a result of misused (and likely non-existent) "classified information," a growing body of invisible truth being used by political leaders in supposedly democratic nations to demonstrate to citizens that they are making gains in the all-too-abstract "War on Terror." The public exoneration and compensation of Maher Arar makes clear that there is a concrete financial cost to such secrecy, in addition to a political one.
And yet the continued presence of Mr. Arar's name on the US "no fly list" is a sad example of the failure of our public institutions to right the inevitable wrongs that the culture of over-classification commits. It would seem that even the rational light of public justice is not enough to put to rest some of the worst kinds of secrets, namely the kind that justify unfounded hearsay, and unjust detention.
With this in mind, I find the op-ed contribution in today's New York Times particularly relevant.
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