Rep. Markey said, “The Bush administration reflexively responds with the ‘state secrets’ defense whenever it is caught bending or simply ignoring the law. Sending detainees abroad to be tortured? State secret. Listening in on American citizen’s phone calls? State secret. The American people deserve better than an administration running roughshod over our human rights and civil liberties laws, and the Supreme Court should not allow the president to shield illegal practices behind ‘state secrets’ claims any longer.

“We need to stop the practice of extraordinary rendition, which is nothing more than the outsourcing of torture, by passing the Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act to permanently close the loopholes exploited by the Bush Administration when it sends detainees to known torturers with a wink and a nod. Experienced interrogators tell us that torture is not an effective technique to extract information from detainees, and extraordinary rendition – which is essentially torture-by-proxy - has no place in the policy tool-kit of the United States.”

In March, Rep. Markey reintroduced the “Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act”, H.R. 1352, which would end to the Administration’s practice of “extraordinary rendition,” whereby prisoners captured or detained by the US government are transferred for interrogation or detention to countries known to use torture. The legislation currently has 54 co-sponsors. Extraordinary rendition violates the guarantees enshrined in the Convention Against Torture as well as the 1998 Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act, both of which state that no individual can be transferred to a country likely to use torture. However, the Bush Administration continues to ignore such provisions.