Legal limbo: how low can they go?

Apparently there's a new kind of torture in the Maher Arar case, and that's the tortured argument being put forward by the Justice Department:

Mason said the U.S. government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country.

If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. Mason told Judge David Trager that's because they are deemed to be still outside the U.S., from a legal point of view.

Let's consider the flip side of this: if the passenger then commits a crime while in prison (or better yet, escapes from such custody), is he or she able to avoid prosecution because the crime took place outside the U.S.' jurisdiction? Or is it simply a matter of the U.S. government redefining borders as it sees fit with no regard for logic, common sense and other such nuisances?

Fortunately, the argument is being made in open court, leaving the opportunity for both the judge and the court of public opinion to evaluate the strength of the argument. And in this case, the argument would crumble under the weight of a paperback copy of the Abridged Ethics of Karl Rove.