acted lawfully

so the united states takes an innocent man from the canadian government, then sends him to syria for questioning, where he was tortured for ten months. the canadian government launches a full investigation into the matter, finding that both the u.s. and canada were responsible for the torture of maher arar. and this is our government's response:

U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales said Tuesday that the United States had acted lawfully when it deported a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to Syria, where Arar says he was tortured during a yearlong incarceration.

"Mr. Arar was deported under our immigration laws. He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our laws," Gonzales told reporters.

um, if our laws permit an innocent man to be tortured, then maybe we should change those laws. you know, instead of pushing to give detainees less ability to challenge whether they were legitimately detained.

it just seems like common sense to me. if the laws allowed this horrible crime to happen, then we need to fix the laws to stop such crimes in the future. but that simple point is something that seems to utterly elude mr. gonzalez and his boss.