The claim most characteristic of the entire Bush presidency has been the one stating that we must all give up our basic rights and freedoms for the sake of the all-holy National Security. And while what Zuhair Mahd is going through right now is not as immediately frightening as being detained without trial and disappeared without access to judicial redress, it’s symptomatic of the same malady. The U. S. Constitution protects, for everyone under its jurisdiction, the right to face one’s accuser and know what one is accused of. This is not a right to be enjoyed solely by U. S. citizens–it is a right to be respected by every single U. S. Court and every player in the U. S. Government. Immigrants not yet naturalized are supposed to enjoy this right, too.

But not, we are told, if that right could be said to compromise that holiest-of-holies, National Security.

At the August 31 hearing [PDF transcript], the defense attorney tried to withhold the findings of Zuhair’s name check from even a federal judge:

THE COURT: But at this point… you have not met the burden of convincing me that a name check has been completed. In fact, you are now carefully not even telling me the results of it.

MS. WEISHAUPL: Your Honor, the name check process is an extremely delicate and involved process, Your Honor. Would it be sufficient for Your Honor to have an affidavit from the FBI asserting that the name check has been completed?

You have to just take our word for it. We can’t prove it to you, because anything that constitutes proof is too high security for a lowly judge to look at. Just trust us that it was done.

Flimsy, ain’t it? Judge Miller thought so, too:

THE COURT: I am not going to prejudge what is sufficient. A representation by you that it has been completed, without telling me whether the plaintiff has successfully met the requirement or not, and not give that as a reason for denying his application, is totally unsatisfactory, counsel…
[I]f you have some other way in which you could either produce the document or give me the results, I assure you that I qualify–in fact, my chambers qualifies–to look at security matters.

You know what happened next: the judge ordered that the results of the name check be filed, in camera if necessary, by September 14.

And on September 13, the defendants filed a metric ton of paperwork that was too heavily redacted to tell whether it actually related to a name check at all. Because, y’know, National Security Über Alles.

That grinding sound you hear? Thats my teeth.