The Party of No Goes Nutty Over Miranda Rights, Rule of Law

February 03, 2010  |  Posted by Danielle Belton

Never have I seen so many people feigning fear over something as rote and commonplace as the reading of Miranda rights. Listen to Sen. Susan Collins and you get the impression that every time a terrorist is read his or her Miranda Rights, they get their legal "wings" and fly far far away from the clutches of justice.

Collins recently went on a tear about the Christmas Day underpants bomber, charging that the Obama Administration is making us "less safe" by treating a criminal like a criminal and seeking to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. Sen. Collins, falsely, is under the impression that Mirandizing someone keeps you from interrogating them properly even though all "Mirandizing" does is tell someone you have a right to an attorney and can choose whether or not to talk. Shocking.

Of course, Sen. Collins' caterwauling has appeared to be for naught as -- surprise, surprise -- the FBI's very legal and very constitutional interrogation methods appear to be working just dandy.

From Politico:

The “underwear bomber” has resumed cooperating with FBI counterterrorism agents and has provided “useful, current” intelligence, a law enforcement source told POLITICO on Tuesday.

The Obama administration has been criticized for reading Miranda rights to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the fizzled airborne bombing attempt on Christmas Day.

The suspect, now being held in a federal prison outside Detroit, was questioned by the FBI for 50 minutes on the day of the attack, then was read his rights.

“Since then, the FBI and Justice Department have been pressing him to cooperate,” the source said. “It started last week, and has continued for several days. The information has been active, useful, and we have been following up. The intelligence is not stale. He certainly sees that there are incentives provided by the criminal justice system to cooperate.”

Strangely, without Jack Bauer holding a pen to his eye and threatening to pluck it out, Abdulmutallab is talking to agents again. Will Sen. Collins be issuing an apology to the DOJ for acting like they were incapable of doing their jobs? Atty. General Eric Holder probably shouldn't hold his breath.

Maybe this is just a rough concept for Sen. Collins and other Republicans to grasp but ... ahem ... Abdulmutallab IS NOT the first terrorist of any kind that the FBI has ever dealt with. The Department of Justice has an extensive history of being able to interrogate, detain, arrest, disrupt and counteract terrorism suspects. From Ramzay Yousef, the first World Trade Center bomber, to domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and the Beltway Snipers -- the FBI KNOWS their way around a terrorist. They know what interrogation methods work and what doesn't work. And they know that reading "Miranda Rights" doesn't create some alternative legal universe that makes a subject untouchable.

Joan Walsh of Salon pointed out the following regarding the Susan Collinses of the right:

Has anyone else noticed that the once-fierce GOP ... lately seems like a bunch of bed-wetters, afraid to let our Democratic institutions work to keep us safe? We've tried hundreds of terrorists in criminal court and convicted them, and they sit in supermax American prisons. Not one has gotten out to terrorize again. But now Republicans are claiming that the policies pursued by Bush and Cheney regarding criminal trials for terrorists aren't enough. We have to be kept even safer! But if we agree to be terrorized by the thought of using our institutions to protect us from terror, well, haven't the terrorists won?

I get that Republicans see National Security as their strong suit. But arguing that our legal system is too weak, attacking law enforcement for doing their jobs -- correctly -- out of the desire to score a few cheap political points is appalling. While it's understandable that the American public would be fearful of individuals like Abdulmutallab, that they would be concerned, it's pretty shallow to use that legitimate concern and exploit it for the sake of political posturing. Because that's what this is. We didn't just wake up one day and suddenly have a "weak" justice system.

In the Supermax prison where Ramzay Yousef is held he's on lock down 23 hours of the day in solitary confinement. There's never been an escape from a Supermax prison. And our justice system has tried and convicted 195 terrorists since 2001. And we convicted them here, in the U.S. Not at Gitmo, where military tribunals have only managed to try and prosecute THREE people. But if you listen to Republicans you'd think you were watching some cheap Hollywood B-movie where the bad guy gets away because someone forget to cross a "t" and dot an "i" in some Byzantine police report.

Why attack our justice system? Because fear is a great motivator. If you convince people that something strong is actually weak, you just opened a new vein for votes. In the end, this has much more to do with attacking and stymieing the President rather than keeping American safe. This has a lot more to do with hampering the President's ability to govern than doing the right thing. This about being the Party of No. About holding up progress for the sake of muddying a few eyes.

This isn't about justice or security. It's about elections and wedge issues.

Will fear get your vote in the fall?

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