At Balkanization, David Luban discusses the new (and terrible) anti-embarrassment legal principle

So there we have it. Along with the famous "commander in chief override," which supposedly allows the President (in his role as Greatest Field Marshall of All Time) to override any law in the name of national security, we now have the anti-embarrassment principle, which allows courts to dismiss any law suit that might embarrass U.S. officials in the eyes of our allies.

This principle was used when US District Judge David Trager dismissed Maher Arar's lawsuit against U.S. officials who, Arar says, were implicit in his being sent to Syria to be systematically tortured.

The Syrian-born Canadian engineer was detained as a suspected terrorist during a stopover in New York as he returned from a vacation in September 2002.

After being held virtually incommunicado by U.S. officials, he was sent to Syria, where he said he was tortured and held in a tiny cell he likened to a "grave" for nearly a year. He was never charged before Syria returned him to Canada.

Mr. Arar was eventually returned to Canada because he did nothing wrong.  Now a U.S. court is trying to brush it under the rug saying the case is "too embarrassing."

U.S. complicity in extraordinary rendition is more than embarrassing; Judge Trager's attempt to ignore it is beyond shameful.