Should US Citizens Have Miranda Rights?
In 2010 I gave the founder’s WARNING of this tyranny…yet their warnings are still not heard. Three years later we are still hearing the same demand that our Liberty must be suspended for security; that our Constitution is inadequate and needs to be “interpreted” to meet our current security needs. I am puzzled by the demand to “interpret” the Constitution. As a friend recently pointed out, the Constitution written in ENGLISH. Why does our government constantly demand its “interpretation”? I think it is just an indication of their illiteracy.
Elizabeth Warren: Federal prosecutors need to ‘‘find the right balance’’ in deciding whether to read Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights. [Too bad these aren’t ‘MIRANDA’ rights…they are your 5th & 6th AMENDMENT rights.]
Michael Bloomberg: “But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”
3 years ago Eric Holder was demanding the same Constitutional heresy when Faisal Shahzad tried to blow up Times Square. I tried to share the Founders’ warnings then. Will YOU now help me give VOICE to the founders of this nation?
WE must share their warnings or repeat their mistakes and doom our children to tyranny!
By KrisAnne Hall – www.krisannehall.com
June 24th, 2010
In the infamous words of Rahm Emanauel, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” And we have had plenty recently. The danger is, with the rapid succession of each new catastrophe, we don’t stop long enough to identify the real issues. It becomes a huge shell game where the people’s attention is diverted from one situation to the next; and each crisis is never wasted. Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” According to Jefferson, we must not be distracted; we must be vigilant against every enemy of freedom.
One crisis that seems to have faded from public memory is the issue of Faisal Shahzad and his Miranda rights. Mr. Shahzad was the prime suspect in the May 1, 2010, Times Square car bomb attempt, to which he has reportedly confessed. To Mirandize or not to Mirandize that was the question. We could also ask it like this:
Should Every Citizen of the United States Be Afforded the Full Protection of the Constitution?
Attorney General EricHolder wants to make the requirement for Miranda more “flexible”. Although he did not elaborate, he did say he would seek to make an exception to Miranda “consistent with the public safety concerns that we now have in the 21st century as opposed to the public safety concerns that we had back in the 1980s.” Although the Supreme Court has clearly defined the ‘public safety’ exception, it appears that Mr. Holder believes that Congress should now broaden those standards.
Why is this important? Because the rights afforded by Miranda are rights that come directly from the 5th and 6th Amendments of the Constitution. So cutting through the doublespeak – Mr Holder is saying that the Justice Department should have the power to suspend a citizen’s 5th and 6th Amendment rights.
The 5th Amendment, containing the clause protecting against Self-Incriminationis based on the idea that people cannot be forced to testify against themselves against their will. This principle did not become part of English law until the 1700s. Before then, people could be forced to testify against themselves, and this evidence was admissible in court, even if the evidence was obtained by torturing the witness. Coincidently, these tactics had been used primarily to extinguish any political or religious belief that differed from that of the Royal government.
The 6th Amendment also has roots in English law and in part provides that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, Parliament passed a law allowing people accused of treason, the right to be represented by an attorney at trial, but this right did not extend to any other classes of crime. By the time of the Revolutionary War, most believed that a person should have the right to hire an outside attorney or to even represent himself at trial, regardless of the charges.
The question that Mr. Holder wants to distract us with is, “Should Mr. Shahzad be afforded the same Constitutional rights as every other citizen of the United States?” Without hesitation the answer to that question should be a most emphatic YES! The truth is it is not the right question. Everycitizen should be afforded every Constitutional protection that our founding fathers and our brave military have bled and died for. It should not be up to the government to determine when and how the Constitution applies to its citizens. We must remember the reasons we have these rights.
Patrick Henry told us that “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government,” and George Washington furthered that thought by saying, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
We cannot allow the government to have that type of power. And we don’t have to when we open our eyes to the 800lb gorilla standing in the room. The problem is not the citizens having too many Constitutional rights…
The REAL Question is this: Should Mr. Shahzad Have Been Granted The Privilege of Being a Citizen of The United States in The First Place and Why Did He Retain This Privilege?
Mr. Shahzad was born in Pakistan. In December 1998 he was granted an F-1 student visa.In 1999 he was placed on a US Customs (later merged into DHS) travel lookout list called the “Traveler Enforcement Compliance System. (See CBS News Investigates, May 5, 2010) Between 1999 and 2008 Mr. Shahzad brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States. (See CBS Investigates, May 13, 2010)
In spite of being on this watch list, he was granted U.S. citizenship on April 17, 2009, due to his marriage to his wife.A few weeks later, he abruptly quit his job and stopped making payments on his house, defaulting on the $218,400 mortgage. After an 8 month stint in Pakistan, Shahzad came back to the U.S. in February 2010. There is no record he had any job since returning. Yet he drove an Isuzu and paid $1,150 per month to rent an apartment in Bridgeport, CT, never missing a payment. He clearly had plenty of cash. Shahzad slapped down $1,300 in $100 dollar bills to pay for the used SUV that was found smoking, rigged with explosives, in Times Square. A CBS News analysis estimates he spent at least $2,000 to make the bomb. He reportedly had at least one gun estimated to be worth $400. On Monday night when he tried to flee, he forked over an estimated $800 in cash to pay for a one-way ticket to Islamabad, Pakistan via Dubai, UAE. (See CBS Investigates, May 13, 2010)
Our failing is not in the Constitution, it is once again in the botched immigration policies and practices. Why isn’t Mr. Holder trying to work with Congress to make the immigration laws“consistent with the public safety concerns that we now have in the 21st century”, instead of trying to strip the citizens of their Constitutional protections. (Such an approach would certainly help the citizens of Southern Arizona.)
William Pitt said in 1783, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves.” I, for one, do not want the current “safety concerns” to determine the extent of my Constitutional rights. We must heed the warning of Benjamin Franklin when he said, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety, deserves neither liberty nor safety.”
