Just a very quick one today, without elaboration:
- Times Square Bomb Suspect Charged
- Sidebar: Suspect linked to Pakistan
- Sidebar: Should Suspect have been Mirandized?
- BP Fights Oil Slick with Chemicals
- GOP Hopefuls in Lockstep on Key Issues
- Microsoft’s Internet Explorer losing browser share — Story says it’s down under 60 percent, which to me still seems way high. I’m surprised when I see anybody use it (I’m a Firefox guy myself).
Related Posts
RE: IE–if they use aol email addresses, it’s almost like they’re using a rotary phone, no?
RE: Miranda Warnings–it never ceases to amaze me that there is a single arresting officer out there who doesn’t just automatically recite it.
GOP hopefuls in lockstep–Dog bites man.
What do they mean, “legal niceties?” Our country is a country of laws. This man is a United States citizen, entitled to his rights as such. Take that away, and we should be terrified of something much more dangerous than any car bomb–we should be terrified of a government who can treat a citizen as it pleases without regard to rights. It is a very good thing indeed that he was Mirandized, and is being treated as an American citizen under arrest. I was very saddened to see that Sen. McCain was one of those who spoke out against giving this man his rights as a citizen. I would think that Sen. McCain would understand how important it is remain a country of law.
Karen, the Miranda ritual is a longtime whipping boy of conservatives, based in indignation over the rare cases in which guilty criminals get off on the technicality of not having been read their rights. It’s easy to get indignant over. Anyone would, but it’s particularly galling to “law and order” conservatives.
I, too, am weary of and disappointed in John McCain for running to the right in a degrading scramble to get re-elected. But, that said, in this case we’re talking about one of the core disagreements between liberals and conservatives over the War on Terror. Basically, liberals of a certain stripe don’t believe that this war exists, and see every terrorist attack in isolation, as a crime to be prosecuted like any other. Their political opposites — and this would include McCain, so I think he’s being consistent here to a certain extent — this is a new and shadowy form of warfare, in which someone like Shahzad is treated like an enemy combatant captured on a battlefield.
All of this debate seems to be sort of moot in this case, as Shahzad seems to have been singing like a canary since his arrest, both before and after hearing his rights. It makes me smile to see something like this happen — the ideologues all poised to have a big fight, and reality sort of pulls the rug out from under them.
Another thing that strikes me, Karen, and I hope you’ll forgive me for pointing this out before someone else does: When you INSIST on this guyg being Mirandized because we are a country of laws, etc., you sound a little like the indignant, angry, anti-illegal immigrant folks with whom you disagree. I say that because when I was approving comments just now, and started reading yours and read “What do they mean, ‘legal niceties?’ Our country is a country of laws,” I had not yet noticed your name or which post this was on (I see all comments lumped together when I’m moderating), and I thought it was from one of those folks.
I agree with you and them — we are a nation of laws and not men. But I am not offended by changing the law when it’s not working (immigration) or using wartime legal standards rather than civil when the national security situation warrants.
When I agree with Glenn Beck about something, hell hath truly frozen over. And when Glenn Beck shows a better grasp of the Constitution and the rule of law than John McCain, well, that just is part of the sad story that is the latter part of McCain’s once proud and honorable career. Karen, you’re absolutely right: if the right-wing-nuts are really so scared that Obama is a socialist bent on undermining the Constitution, shouldn’t THEY be scared of granting the government the right to suspend legal rights for a US Citizen by labeling them terrorists?
Even Sen. Lieberman’s idea of stripping citizenship for someone, like Shahzad, evidently linked to terrorism, isn’t well thought-through: had that existed in the 1950’s, doubtless hundreds of Americans could have had their citizenship and legal rights removed under pretense of their “connection” to communist organizations. Martin Luther King could conceivably have had his citizenship revoked had J. Edgar Hoover had the use of such a law.
We selectively enforce laws all the time. Have you ever been stopped for exceeding the actual posted speed limit by one MPH? (Well, outside South Congaree or a military base)
It is a very low cost thing to read someone his Miranda rights. Why the police fail to do so is either incredible stupidity, or because they are trying to deprive a suspect of his rights. This is a serious breach of civil rights.
Deporting illegal workers (and if you want to know who is on that side, read the comments under the Bauer story in The State–if you cannot spell “illegal” you are a disgrace to the English language.) is costly, and not terribly effective–sort of like moving cockroaches outdoors instead of killing them in your home and then figuring out how to deal with them better in the future. They, or others just like them , will return as long as it is more attractive to be inside and not overly difficult to get there.
And I’m not saying illegals are cockroaches; it really is a metaphor.
Nor are you saying we should kill them rather than deport them. I think.
La cucaracha, la cucaracha, ya no puede caminar…
“I am not offended by…using wartime legal standards rather than civil when the national security situation warrants.”
The fact that an inept would-be terrorist like Shahzad can practically stumble his way into killing or maiming a bunch of people is prima facie evidence that in a democratic, open society such as ours, you will never guarantee complete protection from such acts.
If you are saying that as long as that is the case, then it is a “national security issue” that warrants “wartime legal standards,” then the game is pretty much over wouldn’t you say? We will have to follow wartime standards, permanently. They become the new default standard. Meanwhile, I read today in the same paper that breathlessly told of the “exploits” of Mr. Shahzad, that 11,000 Americans are killed each year via drunk driving. Which leads me to this:
Steve Coll in his blog at the New Yorker expressed the other day what might be called the opposing view from yours, in words more eloquent than mine: “Domestic terrorism constitutes a persistent and serious threat, but not a strategic or existential one. The country’s vulnerability arises not so much from the damage terrorists will cause but from American society’s self-defeating inability to see such violence in perspective and to find leadership and language to define national resilience.”
A side note here… since when does an “existential” threat have to exist for a state of war to exist? Most wars in human history have not been ones in which the loser ceases to exist. In fact, in strict terms we only became capable of achieving that in recent times, leaving the precedent of Carthage aside for a moment…
I would add that there are numerous indications that for some time we’ve been moving into a period of history that goes beyond the national-state model with which we all grew up. We have large corporations conducting foreign policy on a grand scale (Google and China) and new kinds of wars in which we are not at war with a state, but with loose, viral coalitions of radical individuals (call it the “social media” model) that nevertheless have the capacity to severely damage our nation’s economic and civic well-being — not to mention killing bunches of us.
This new model is not all that new if you’re not a westerner. But for those of us accustomed to the Clausewitzian notion of warfare between national teams in uniform, this kind of conflict attacks all sorts of assumptions — including our most cherished values rooted in the rule of law. (We still haven’t recovered from our encounter with such nonWestern warfare in Vietnam; it’s still distorting our politics and our approaches to national security.)
The very fact that we HAVE debates like this is an effect of this kind of warfare being waged against us. It causes us to question the wisdom and basis of liberal democracy, at least around the edges — and sometimes at the core. To dismiss something that insidious, that widespread, as merely a series of crimes that are separate and discrete, is to make a strategic mistake.
The key is to fight this enemy effectively while continuing to be a liberal democracy based in the rule of law, and it’s a considerable challenge.
Brad, I’m disappointed in you. You are the one forever pointing out that we are a nation based on law (rather than a dictator’s fiat). If we choose to strip a person of citizenship after finding him guilty of a given crime (assuming that such a punishment is standard and reasonable for that crime), then that’s fine. But to strip citizenship from a citizen before he/she’s found guilty is to put us all in peril. That means, quite simply, that someone can accuse you of whatever (remember, we haven’t even defined the circumstances under which this might be done) and you can lose your citizenship and rights. At that point you have no rights, and are at the mercy of our government. Whisk you away to Gitmo? Extraordinary rendition? Have a good trip. This sort of government behavior was one of the reasons that Americans decided that they had had enough of King George III. I’m not saying that we can’t try the guy for treason, and execute him if we find him guilty, and see fit to do so. It simply means that he is a citizen and is entitled to the rights and protections afforded our citizens by the constitution and the laws of this land. And and if we fail to protest, just because the person is probably guilty and may well be linked to foreign enemy forces, it may then be that there will be no one left to protest when they come for us.
At some point, no matter which side you are on on the matter of terrorism and terrorists, we must obey the rule of law and abide by it, like it or not.
The bomber is a citizen of the United States, born or naturalized, irregardless, he is still a citizen. His actions, although reprehensible, were illegal and as such, when arrested, he was Mirandized and this is correct and lega. The arresting officers followed the rule of law. For that, I am grateful. Now, anything he reveals can be used legally and not become fruit of the poisoned tree. As mentioned by another, if convicted, he can be stripped of his citizenship and deported to his home country according to the law. Until then, he is entitled to the full protection as any other citizen under the constitution and the law.
I cannot be a hypocrite on this matter vs my position on the Arizona illegal immigrant law.
@ Bart–I applaud your position.