Not an April Fools’ Joke: MI5 Investigated for Mistreating Jihadist
I disagree. It is absolutely necessary in a free society that those who enforce the power of the state (such as the FBI & the CIA, the RCMP & CSIS here in Canada, MI5 in GB) be subject to the scrutiny that keeps them operating within the rule of law. If that’s not done, it’s not much of a step for misdirected governments to transform those organizations into the Western equivalent of the KGB.
Here in Canada we’ve seen such abuses happen far to often – ranging from the RCMP orchestrated barn burning in the 70′s to torturing of Maher Arar to the recent killing of a hapless and somewhat disoriented Polish visitor to British Columbia. America has many similar stories (look up the behaviour of J. Edgar Hoover for lots of examples).
If these organizations are to be trusted by the citizens they are mandated to serve, we have to be able to keep them in line, and punish transgressions on their part severely. An out of control security force is a far greater threat to civil liberties than the occasional terrorist who escapes on technicalities.
