Good news: U.S. reportedly reading terrorists their Miranda rights now

posted at 6:22 pm on June 10, 2009 by Allahpundit
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Say, weren’t we warned during the campaign that this might happen if Obama won? Take it away, Sarahcuda:

Terrorist states are seeking nuclear weapons without delay … he wants to meet them without preconditions.

Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights?

As I recall, she ate no small amount of crap for accusing him of that given his silence on the matter before the election. But then, this is the same woman who said enormous tax hikes were inevitable under The One in order to pay for his catastrophic expansion of government, notwithstanding his campaign promises not to raise taxes on the middle class. How’s that prediction working out so far? Crazy Sarah and her nutty theories.

Anyway, yeah. Miranda warnings:

If Tenet is right, it’s a good thing KSM was captured before Barack Obama became president. For, the Obama Justice Department has quietly ordered FBI agents to read Miranda rights to high value detainees captured and held at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan, according a senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “The administration has decided to change the focus to law enforcement. Here’s the problem. You have foreign fighters who are targeting US troops today – foreign fighters who go to another country to kill Americans. We capture them…and they’re reading them their rights – Mirandizing these foreign fighters,” says Representative Mike Rogers, who recently met with military, intelligence and law enforcement officials on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan.

Rogers, a former FBI special agent and U.S. Army officer, says the Obama administration has not briefed Congress on the new policy. “I was a little surprised to find it taking place when I showed up because we hadn’t been briefed on it, I didn’t know about it. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it, but it is clearly a part of this new global justice initiative.”

It was thoughtful of the most transparent administration evah to force Rogers to find out about this on the battlefield. There’s a certain perverse logic to it, though: If you’re unwilling to use any form of enhanced interrogation to save lives, you might as well go the whole nine yards and affirmatively warn detainees that they don’t have to talk to you. That’s what a law-enforcement approach to terrorism means — accepting a heightened risk of an attack by eschewing certain preventative measures in order to heighten the risk of conviction in court later by following criminal procedure. How this squares with The One’s willingness to send drones into Pakistan and torpedo houses packed with people on the say-so of informants is beyond me, but I’m sure we’ll get a speech on it at some point down the line. Exit question: Why institute a Miranda policy for terrorists captured abroad before the Supreme Court’s even heard the issue? They might find a wrinkle distinguishing classic criminal cases from prisoners of war — especially if Sotomayor’s half as tough on crime as the White House spin team keeps assuring us she is.

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