Thought for the Day:
Who Are We?

Black Sites
from Wikipedia:
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which a black project is conducted. Recently the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons, generally outside of the mainland U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction, and with little or no political or public oversight. It can refer to the facilities that are controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used by the U.S. in its War on Terror to detain suspected enemy combatants. One of the alleged purposes is to detain suspected terrorists outside of the Intelligence Oversight Act which authorizes Congressional supervision. Another purpose, according to the February 2007 European Parliament report, is for detaining suspects while CIA flights used in the extraordinary rendition program make their way through European territory.
US President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of secret prisons operated by the CIA during a speech on September 6, 2006. A claim that the black sites existed was made by The Washington Post in November 2005 and before by human rights NGOs.
Many European countries have officially denied they are hosting Black Sites to imprison terrorists or cooperating in the US extraordinary rendition program. No countries have confirmed that they are hosting black sites. However, according to the EU report, adopted on February 14, 2007 by a majority of the European Parliament (382 MEPs voting in favour, 256 against and 74 abstaining), the CIA operated 1,245 flights, and stated that it was not possible to contradict evidence or suggestions that secret detention centres were operated in Poland and Romania. This 2007 report "regrets that European countries have been relinquishing control over their airspace and airports by turning a blind eye or admitting flights operated by the CIA which, on some occasions, were being used for illegal transportation of detainees.”
An investigation on the origins of the leaks has also been opened by the U.S. Justice Department to investigate what may have been illegal release of classified information.

Extraordinary Rendition
from Wikipedia:
Extraordinary rendition and irregular rendition are terms used to describe the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one state to another, and the term torture by proxy is used by some critics to describe situations in which the U.S. has purportedly transferred suspected terrorists to countries known to employ harsh interrogation techniques that may rise to the level of torture. It has been alleged that torture has been employed with the knowledge or acquiescence of the United States, although United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated in an April 2006 radio interview that the United States does not transfer people to places where it is known they will be tortured.
The US program has raised a series of moral, judicial, and political allegations, prompting several official European Union investigations. A June 2006 report from the Council of Europe estimated 100 people had been kidnapped by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on EU territory and rendered to other countries, often after having transited through secret detention centers ("black sites") used by the CIA in cooperation with other governments. According to the European Parliament report of February 2007, the CIA has conducted 1,245 flights, many of them to destinations where suspects could face torture, in violation of article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. A large majority of the European Union Parliament endorsed the report's conclusion that many member states tolerated illegal actions of the CIA and criticized several European governments and intelligence agencies for their unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation.