Is freedom the price of security?

   "The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither."  Thomas Jefferson    

     The question of our basic human rights being subjugated for national security has once again been shifted from what is right to what is convenient in a time of war.  Torture, being held without a trial, and turning over prisoners to foreign governments to be held and tortured for ‘information’ are only some of the issues that this war on terrorism has brought up.  The latest insult that has been given to human rights is the federal court ruling stating that former prisoners of the CIA (which is in and of itself ludicrous that the CIA is allowed to have prisoners) cannot sue over their alleged torture because their lawsuits might expose secret government information.  This article, ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/us/09secrets.html ) published on September 8, 2010, demonstrates in my opinion, one of the scariest issues that we as citizens are failing to act on.  Torture, a despicable and ineffective method of information gathering, and one outlawed by international treaties, has once again become an issue for our nation.  But I think the real heart of this particular issue is the right to a trial, a right that is being denied for 'national security'.  Obama promised transparency and change and loudly criticized the Bush administration for its use of largely illegal and completely immoral methods during this war.  Yet here we are, nearly two years after his election and a federal court has denied a man who was tortured and held for years by our government the right to sue a private corporation that was complicit in the transfer of prisoners.  He wasn’t even suing the government, which has long had a law stating that it cannot be sued without its permission.  So now the government is endowing corporations with the same protection that they themselves have enjoyed.  This is horrible.  People should be outraged and scared.  The fact that the government is implying that our national security rests on information that could come out in a civil trail regarding the transport of prisoners arranged by a subsidiary of Boeing is laughable.  If our national security is that fragile than what have we been spending billions of dollars on every year?   The fact that we are supposed to subjugate the rights of the individual for some nebulous, unexplained national security is infuriating.  What the current administration is really trying to do is to protect its own interests and the interests of its allies.  Because let’s face it, people will continue doing something that is wrong as long as they don’t get into trouble for it.