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Plan Would Let U.S. Deport Suspects to Nations That Might Torture Them
The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership's intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.

The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.

The provision, human rights advocates said, contradicts pledges President Bush made after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal erupted this spring that the United States would stand behind the U.N. Convention Against Torture. ...

..."Is it an inconvenience if we can't send people back to torturers? Sure," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "But since Abu Ghraib, everyone from the president to the Defense Department to Congress has said the United States does not have a policy of torture. If this passes, we will have a policy of tolerating torture."...

Mr. Speaker, Man of God
CBN.com – NEW YORK -- Most of the attention this year is focused on the presidential race, but Republicans are determined to defend their control of the House of Representatives. Lee Webb sat down with the 62-year-old Speaker of the House Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to look at those elections as well as the Illinois congressman's unique tax proposal, his Christian faith, and a new book. ...

...WEBB: Mr. Speaker, many of our viewers may not know that you are an Evangelical Christian. You are a man of faith. What role does your faith play in the decisions you make on a daily basis?

HASTERT: Every day that I get up to do this job, I thank God for the ability to do it, and for giving me this responsibility, and I ask Him for His guidance every day. I couldn't do this job without the ability to do that. ...