Rights Are Curtailed for Terror Suspects

[robcon]

Rights Are Curtailed for Terror Suspects
By EVAN PEREZ

New rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed the handling of criminal suspects for more than four decades.

The move is one of the Obama administration's most significant revisions to rules governing the investigation of terror suspects in the U.S. And it potentially opens a new political tussle over national security policy, as the administration marks another step back from pre-election criticism of unorthodox counterterror methods.

The Supreme Court's 1966 Miranda ruling obligates law-enforcement officials to advise suspects of their rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present for questioning. A 1984 decision amended that by allowing the questioning of suspects for a limited time before issuing the warning in cases where public safety was at issue.

That exception was seen as a limited device to be used only in cases of an imminent safety threat, but the new rules give interrogators more latitude and flexibility to define what counts as an appropriate circumstance to waive Miranda rights.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576218970652119898.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
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I think this is a significant change in the rights of the accused. If the crime they have been accused of is considered 'terrorist-related,' the accused prisoner doesn't have to be given Miranda rights.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Meaning, you can tie a 79 IQ homeless man to a chair and beat him with a phone book

until he confesses to leading a terrorist plot, before allowing him to see a lawyer. Of course, once he's confessed, he's an "enemy combatant" and can then be shipped out to (still open for business) GITMO without seeing a lawyer.

[spin]

2. It's amazing how many rights we have lost because of the war on drugs ...

and the war on terror.

Imagine what "Tricky Dick" Nixon could have done with all the new powers available.

[Diclotican]

3. spin

spin

Evenr mr Nixon should have some limits to what he could do, even with the new powers avaiable to him today.

But think about one thing.. What with a new president, aka a cross section from GWB Rumsfeld and Cheney... That would make for a hell of a future for US..

Diclotican

[spin]

4. I'm not worried abut Obama ...

but granting the executive branch powers which violate the freedoms and rights we as citizens have been granted by the Bill of Rights disturbs me.

Who can predict who will gain the office of Presidency in the future and misuse the new powers to harass and silence criticism of his administration? This gradual and incremental destruction of our liberties may enable the rich and powerful to rule the lower classes with an iron fist.

Eventually we may have censorship of the press and the internet and I will fear expressing my opinion on forums such as DU.

I expect to have my first great grandchild in November. What type of nation will this child and my children and grandchildren inherit? I hope that it does not resemble the world described in George Orwell's excellent but scary novel 1984.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (sometimes written 1984) is a 1949 novel that reflects a dystopia by George Orwell about an oligarchical, collectivist society. Life in the Oceanian province of Airstrip One is a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control. The individual is always subordinated to the state, and it is in part this philosophy which allows the Party to manipulate and control humanity. In the Ministry of Truth, protagonist Winston Smith is a civil servant responsible for perpetuating the Party's propaganda by revising historical records to render the Party omniscient and always correct, yet his meagre existence disillusions him to the point of seeking rebellion against Big Brother, eventually leading to his arrest, torture, and reconversion.

As literary political fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel of the social science fiction subgenre. Since its publication in 1949, many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, and Memory hole, have become contemporary vernacular. In addition, the novel popularized the adjective Orwellian, which refers to lies, surveillance, or manipulation of the past in the service of a totalitarian agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

[Diclotican]

5. Spin

Spin

I know, mr Obama are not the danger, but future presidents, who have few qualms about going to silence opponents by sending them to prison, or worse, is absolutely something that you all have to worry about.. Its allways dangrous to let government get to mutch power, they wil ALLWAYS misuse it, as we in europe know, and have experienced many times over the last 2000 year or so.. The bill of rights, and your other laws who are given you rights to say what you want, and do it when you want, is something that the rest of the world was looking up to.. US was in many ways a fare more "free" contry than most of Europe was, for the most of the last century.. Today many of the laws, and ideas who your country wa founded up on, is in dager beeing destroyed becouse the unitary laws the goverment have today, indeed can made US a country where censorship and the treath of prison for expression your wiews can happend.. If it have not happend allready sometimes..

The rich and powerfull must allways know, that THEIR rule, is on top of the masses, and that he masses can allways revolt and replace them with others.. In Europe they know that, in US they still belive they can turn back the clock to early 1900s when the workers had no right, and the rich man do have most of the rights.. The great russian revolution of the 1917 managed to scare them enough to let rights for the workers get underway.. If they had not, the whole thing would have exploded somewhere down the road.. It was more easy to let go, than to lose everything..

Todays super-richs and powerfull, know they can go quite a mile before the first sign of rebellion are out there.. The ordinary man have to mutch to loose yet, to rebell. But when that time is coming, that the working man/woman have nothing to loose if they rebell. Then might change wil happend in US also.. All the big rebells and revolutions the last 300 year, have been about nothing to loose.. The french Revolution, the many atemt to revoltuion in 1848, the Russian revolution (1905 and 1917) the Chinese revolution of 1911, and the sivil war who ended in 1949. All came from the masses, who had nothing to loose than their life... As long as the powerfull can play the masses for small pieces they can get away with it. But when crumpes are not enough... Then they might have to consceede to some of the demands.. Even tho I doubt that the current generations of super-rich and powerfully have the knowlegde to try to conseede to anything before it all blow up in their face...

I know about 1984, a great novel, even tho its a scary novel about what the world could have been, if Orwells had been right.. Even tho some of the aspects are wrong, many of the other ideas, like Big brother who know what you do, allways are not to distant out in the future. The 1984 book was about the Stalin Soviet, the first book had a picture of Stalin on the front - but the tools of repression and controll is there today.. If the government want, they CAN controll most of the population, and also have a lot to sa about what they want TV to show.. In NK, a country who are more or less closed off from the rest of the world, they have a 1984 styke of repression and controll about every aspect of a North koreans life from they are born, to they die.. You can't even shut down the radio all the way down, becouse it is not allowed to not know what the party want you to belive!..

I hope your great grandchildren, and your other familiy members can grow up in a better future than our current reality, I for one hope that this horrible acts can stop somehow, and some normality can be a outcome of it all.. We as humans, have the posibility to do marvelous thing in the future, but it all hangs of what we are doing today and tomorow.. The 1984 future is to dark to really belive in.. If anyone had told me, that US would be as it is today, for 10-15, maybe 20 year ago I would have refused it as just stupidity.. Today Im not to sure about it all. Its tragical tose how the liberty and the freedom many of americans still are taken for granted, are not there anymore... It wil be a chock, when the reality about the powers the GWB administration was given to future president who might misuse it to keep power would be discovered.. I hope for the best, that US can somehow dispose of the MCA, The Patriot Act and all the other tools of repression who the GWB made posible.. But I fear that US must go true the same experiece as the rest of the world have going true.. Repression and dictatorship, for then finaly fight the power, and to understand what freedom really are.. Most americans have just a theoretical wiew about freedom and liberty.. They who know, was not pleased with GWB..

Diclotican

[spin]

6. What scares me is that we are losing our middle class...

the, as you call them, "super rich" need to wake up and realize that if the middle class disappears and there are only the very poor and the rich - rebellion will be blowing in the wind.

Students today are taught little history and what history they are taught is polished up to look pretty. You may be right that we will have to experience repression and dictatorship in order to appreciate our form of democracy and the freedoms we have as well as those we have recently lost due to the War on Drugs and the War on Terror.

I have to admit that I'm am amazed and exasperated at how most Americans are acting like sheep and allowing themselves to be herded by the TSA into potentially damaging scanners at airports. Those machines are run by people who paid very little and it's hard to say how how carefully the machines are calibrated and how often they are checked to insure that they don't pass the safe limits of radiation.

I was hoping that the Patriot Act would become history once our party took control of Congress but that was as big a pipe dream as finally getting a good heathcare system in this country.

[Diclotican]

7. spin

spin

If you kill off your middle class, and any hope of coming up in the middle class for most peopole, then you got just very poor and rich.. And an rebellion will be the result.. History show us again and again, when hope for a better life down the road are not there anymore, peopole tend to be angry, and fight back.. This is 101 for anyone with some knowlegde about history the last 1000 year or so.. As long as people have hope for a better life, to at least do as their parents, or better, then they can hold out most missery.. As long as they are not plundred and telled to just "take it"... The last big revolution here in Europe, in the Eastern Europe in 1989, was mostly becouse the leadership in the country we are talking about, lost control, and trust from the population as a whole.. When they lost the support, and the regimes was not seen as a treath anymore, it was just time when they was loosing controll. But for the most part, the cold war ended rather peacefully, or at least with an controlled overtrown of the government, and many of the old guards, did got a comeback in the 1990s when they had re-invented themselfs, and even admitted they had screwed up some of the time.. The hardliners was either retired or was just told to shut up. It was just in Romania, where the government had been most repressive, that it ended with the excuting of the leaders and his wife, and then most of the anger who had been building up for a decade or two was over.. And even 20 year after Romania is far from recovered from the last decade of communist rule.. Its still a poor country, rift with corruption and so one.. And if you leave the big City's its like traveling back 40-50 year in time.. Rather scary if you ask me...

USA and americans have been blessed in a way no other country have been.. No dictatorship, no tyranic leaders, and your constitution have been a gold mine for the rest of the world.. Today with the Patriot Act The MCA, and the rest of the "EXTAS" THE US are not what they once was.. The fact that TSA can opperate as they do, more or less without protest from the general public is a telling tale about what US today is all about.. If anyone had told, this 20 year or so before, you would be told to contact your doctor for some mental medication.. I have just lived the last 34 year or so, but since 2001 USA have changed a lot in what they accept of misuse from your government.. It just pure luck US today are not a full blown dictatorship, that must be becouse of your robust contitution who at least for the moment are saving you from a full blown dictatorship.. But how about next election, if enough americans deside to wote in some of your more "collourfull" politicans into the White House, a dictatorship of sorts are not that long away.. That combined with a theocracy that even the Ayatollahs in Iran could not match.. And with the belife that the end is near, and they might even deside to "help it along a bit".. That scares the hell out of me, even tho I am member of a later conservtive church myself.. The nuttcases use the Bible the same way the Devil are using the Bible, reading into verses what they want it to be, regardness of what really is in the bible...

That is also a point, that the gurdians of the machines that are on the airports for the most part is controlled by officers who are paid little and have little knowlegde about how to opperate the things.. They migth tell us, that the systems is all green, and that they are checked regulary to ensure they are safe when it came to radiation.. and so one.. But we all know, that both the TSA, and the machines are just smokescreens.. If a terrorist WANT to blow up airliners, and to harm americans, they wil manage to go true the security barriers and do their job.. It wil just take some more time to do it.. And as my foster mother can tell, the TSA officers she experienced was rude and not excactly polite, even tho the old little grayheaded woman had all the right paper in order. And even had get a new pasport so it could be read eletronic - but the airport in New Orleans had not the right eqipment to read it, so they was stuck in a room for 4 hour, before given a green light.. We have experience with the "other side" in the cold war, in Bulgaria in late 1980s.. and he meant that the Bulgarian border guards of that age was fare more polite and decent in their habits than TSA in 2007.. They did have this ugly AK47 all over the airports, but at least they was some discreete about it all.. And it was a dictatorship, not a democratic country like most americans still belive United States of America to be... And you know you are in deep ship, when border guards in a dictatorship is more polite and profesional, than TSA are in US in 2011...

I aslo hoped for it, that The Patriot Act, and the other "provisional acts" was history as fast as the democratic party got control of the Congress and Senate. And specially after they got control of the White House (I was suprised, and pleased that Obama was elected president in 2008) this nightmarish lawschangings could be part of the history. But mr Obama have not used the opportunity to really do history, by really do away with the 8 year with the nightmare... But Obama was not what I hoped him to be. But at least he try... But he IS fighting against extremely hard odds.. And he have to do his duties as President too..

I hope he wil change, and that if he got a second time, really is showing what he really are.. And is fighting as hell for the common man.. You really need some in the White House who can..

Diclotican

[Vattel]

8. I remember the primaries

when it seemed that Obama was so against the Bush-era expansion of executive power. Some day I'd love to see a President that was actually pro-civil liberties. Oh well, at least he's been way better than Bush.