The US Supreme Court has reserved a trunk lid seat for you

This has raised all kinds of hackles all over teh tubes.

AMERICA has told Britain that it can “kidnap” British citizens if they are wanted for crimes in the United States.

A senior lawyer for the American government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it.

Chet aptly makes two points.

- That it is a part of the deluded mentality of certain segments of America that the reach of American law is limitless.

- That despite this little revelation being a retention of "bounty hunting" days originating in the 1860s, it puts further question to the definition of "civilized nation" when used in referring to the United States.

The US has already proved a willingness to violate the rule of law and ignore extradition treaties to expedite its own interests.

Mr Justice Ouseley, a second judge, challenged [Alun] Jones to be “honest about [his] position”.

Jones replied: “That is United States law.”

He cited the case of Humberto Alvarez Machain, a suspect who was abducted by the US government at his medical office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1990. He was flown by Drug Enforcement Administration agents to Texas for criminal prosecution.

Although there was an extradition treaty in place between America and Mexico at the time — as there currently is between the United States and Britain — the Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that the Mexican had no legal remedy because of his abduction.

Yes indeed. The US Supreme Court did decide just that. In fact, they have made clear that the actual existence of an extradition treaty with a country makes transnational abductions legitimate.

In the Alvarez Machain case, the Supreme Court rendered a decision which flipped the extradition treaty with Mexico on its ear. Instead of upholding the ruling of the 9th District Court, which vacated the case on the grounds that the abduction violated the terms of the US-Mexico extradition treaty, the Supremes decided that the abduction of Alvarez Machain was no reason not to prosecute him. In fact, they went one further by using the treaty as the reason the abduction was legitimate.

The US Supreme Court majority decision declared that transnational abduction was actually a form of extradition authorized by the treaty because, (hold onto your chair, this is gonna rock you), the treaty does not include an "express promise by either party to refrain from forcible abductions in the territory of the other Nation."

Well there you go then. If you don't expressly forbid kidnapping in an extradition treaty, it must be OK.

With legal opinions like that, there is little hope of ever writing a treaty of any kind with which the United States will adhere. Regardless of any mutual undertakings with another country, if something obscure and outside the context in which a treaty is negotiated is not contained as a specific within that treaty, the US will use it as an excuse to violate the sovereignty of any nation they choose, including those they would count among friends. (A group which Bush has trimmed to a manageable one-digit figure.)

I'll toss this in. Nation-states who hold extradition treaties with the US would be within their rights, if they intercept abductors, to deny such captors the benefits of any prisoner repatriation treaty with the US.

I wonder how long it will take for this crowd to write or interpret "law" which makes Executive Branch sanctioned hostage taking legal?