The case of Maher Arar, the Canadian national who was mistakenly identified as an Islamist extremist and deported from the United States to Syria for interrogation under torture, was explored in a Congressional hearing last October. The record of that hearing (pdf) has just been published.
“The refusal of the Bush administration to be held accountable [for its handling of the Arar case] is an embarrassment to many of us,” said Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) of the House Judiciary Committee, who issued his own apology to Mr. Arar.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) endorsed the apology to Maher Arar, but also defended the Bush Administration policy of extraordinary rendition.
“Should we halt every government program that, due to a human error, results in a tragedy?” asked Mr. Rohrabacher. “I challenge anybody to compare the error rate of rendition, this program, with the error rate in any other government program.”
See “Rendition to Torture: The Case of Maher Arar,” joint hearing before subcommittees of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees, October 18, 2007.
The United States has the only proven and scalable tritium production supply chain, but it is largely reserved for nuclear weapons. Excess tritium production capacity should be leveraged to ensure the success of and U.S. leadership in fusion energy.
Despite an emerging awareness of the importance of state and local government innovation capacity, there is a shortage of plausible strategies to build that capacity.
Innovations in artificial intelligence and robotics will allow us to accelerate the search process using foundation AI models for science research and automate much of the experimentation with robotic, self-driving labs.
FAS commends the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for clearing a historic 75 pieces of legislation, including multiple crucial bills to confront the wildfire crisis.