Saturday, April 20, 2013

Denial of Constitutional Protection

New York Times reports that:

The Obama administration’s announcement that it planned to question the Boston Marathon bombing suspect for a period without first reading him the Miranda warning of his right to remain silent and have a lawyer.

OK… Good American values at work.  One brother dead, the other to be denied his constitutional rights.  Should we make an exception because it was Boston Marathon that was attacked?

Was this considered for any other terrorist act?

OH RIGHT – we normally take suspected, or accused,  terrorists and lock them away without any trial at all.  So why would we be concerned with honoring the Constitution in this case?

Never mind that Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, is a naturalized American citizen and therefore explicitly protected by the Constitution.  This will allow the government to deny each and every citizen Constitutional protection.

he TIMES article concludes with the words:

“This is the paradox of progressive national security law, which is how do you at once advocate for the ability of the civilian courts without accepting that some of that includes compromises that are problematic from a civil liberties perspective?” he said. “The paradox is just as true for the right, because they are ardent supporters of things like the public-safety exception, but its existence actually undermines the case for military commissions.”

 

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