Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#221

Post by cinquemb » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

Tangaroa wrote: post #211

cinquemb wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You could just start a group based around your ideas. Once you get enough people together the group becomes a political force." Well after consulting with people behind some of tech behind OWS, I doubt something like this would be effective. After all, you paint a big red x on yourself for the FBI spooks to go after, while senators and bankers call you domestic terrorists while the police and private security beat y…

Well after consulting with people behind some of tech behind OWS, I doubt something like this would be effective. You could try doing it without calling for a war to kill everybody who disagrees with you, without turning to violence as your first resort, without trying to change the names of public parks that were named after civil rights activists, without raping the women who make the mistake of joining your moveme…

Haha you make it sound as if I was deeply involved with them like a religious zealot of sorts.

I was just helping them out with technical things and stating what I saw + heard from their experiences.

As I mentioned already I think this type of protest is highly ineffective in country where you can effectively shut down a city with coercive fear mongering.

But hey, people are willing to let it become like this so it will only continue. I'll sit back and watch the State™ wash itself in its own flames :D

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#222

Post by glesica » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 6:50 PM UTC

hncommenter13 wrote: post #36

You shouldn't care. Because not reading someone under arrest the Miranda warning is constitutionally irrelevant in and of itself. It only acquires relevance if the government seeks to have the statements admitted at trial. Discussing the similar case of Faisal Shahzad, who attempted to bomb Times Square, Orin Kerr, a law professor who is an expert on the 4th Amendment wrote: "Importantly, though, it would not have vi…

If it doesn't matter, then why don't they just read him his rights? If reading the rights is just a formality, then why all the effort and trouble to avoid doing it? The problem really isn't this case specifically, the problem is what this says about the attitude of the government toward the rights of people who are accused of crimes. The government seems to be sliding toward the position that accused people do not have rights, and this is troubling. Basically, it is an important to ask whether the government should be allowed to have whatever it is that the government believes it is gaining by not reading the suspect his rights in this case.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#223

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 6:54 PM UTC

shaaaaawn wrote: post #121

firefoxman1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not comparing the Nazi party to our own government. I'm simply giving an example of how easily the term "anyone endangering [country name]'s security" can be abused.

Actually, you're using a slippery slope argument and fueling it with a hitler reference.

[deleted]

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#224

Post by jbooth » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 6:59 PM UTC

newbie12 wrote: post #153

lbarrow wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being read your Miranda rights also serves as an explicit acknowledgement by the state that you have those rights. Most of the time, this isn't really important, but in this case it would have served a very important purpose. The Bush administration systematically created a legal netherworld for people they captured on suspicion of terrorism -- people usually referred to as "enemy combatants". They weren't arrested p…

Don't blame Bush, the Obama administration Justice department created the Miranda exception for "operational terrorists". This has nothing to do with enemy combatants; rather, there is the possibility that an active terror suspect on US soil has information about an active threat to public safety, and the police have a right (and duty) to question him about possible threats.

I feel pretty comfortable being upset with both of them over it.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#225

Post by mcantelon » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 7:08 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #126

icelancer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public safety exception strikes me as equivalent to the enemy combatant exception - a way to just skirt civil liberties when it seems relevant.

For heaven's sake. Assuming that they have arrested the correct person, he and his brother had a stack of tactical explosives that they were throwing around with abandon, as well as having bombed a major public event with loss of life and a huge level of injury. Of course the public (via its designated law enforcement agents) has a legitimate interest in establishing whether all possible explosive devices have been f…

>There'll be camera footage from the 7-11 that they held up

They didn't hold up the 7-11.

http://www.wbur.org/2013/04/15/live-blog-multiple-explosions...

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#226

Post by IgorPartola » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 7:14 PM UTC

The Miranda warning is just that, a warning. Some people mistakenly call it the Miranda rights, which is wrong. Your rights are in the Constitution, and the Miranda warning just reminds you of those rights.

Now, the question is this: do the authorities make a big deal of not reading him his Miranda warning simply because they expect that if they do he will excercise his rights? Or are they implying, without saying it explicitly that he has no constitutional rights? If it is the latter, then this is worse than declaring him an enemy combatant (for which I see no basis), since now it basically means that anyone the Feds want to nail badly enough can fall under this category.

Imagine a hacker who responsibly disclosed a security issue with some military property being declared as having no fifth amendment rights. Does that sound like a precident we want?

I am not in any way trying to condone Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's actions. At the very least, he fired shots at the police on his own accord and I am fairly certain we will find out a whole lot more terrible stuff as the investigation continues. However, I am not a fan of how the interrogation is being presented.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#227

Post by nhebb » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 7:15 PM UTC

geuis wrote: post #101

nhebb wrote: post #58

Tsarnaev and his brother planted bombs. It is not unreasonable for the FBI to be concerned that they may have left other bombs in place that could detonate later. Or, that there were other people involved that we don't know about. Invoking the public safety exception to the Miranda rights seems prudent to me.

No, Tsarnaev and his brother did not plant bombs as of the current moment. They are SUSPECTS in a criminal investigation in which one or more parties planted bombs. Be VERY, VERY careful before you throw out that distinction. One day you may find yourself arrested for something you did or didn't do, only to find public opinion very much against you based on little more than hearsay.

There's an apt civil liberties saying, "a conservative is a liberal that's been mugged, and a liberal is a conservative that has been falsely accused." I think the likelihood that they are being falsely accused in this case is very, very low, but your point is valid. I should have wrote that they were suspected bombers.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#228

Post by dsfasfasf » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #206

newbie12 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't blame Bush, the Obama administration Justice department created the Miranda exception for "operational terrorists". This has nothing to do with enemy combatants; rather, there is the possibility that an active terror suspect on US soil has information about an active threat to public safety, and the police have a right (and duty) to question him about possible threats.

They have the duty to do that, only he has the right not to answer, despite not having been told so. You have to defend even terrorists' rights if you want yours to stand.

>>You have to defend even terrorists' rights if you want yours to stand.

Completely agree with this. Unfortunately most people are too stupid to realize that in order to protect your constitutionals rights you must also protect the rights of people you do not like, i.e. hate spouting religious extremists, of any religion. Even the rights of killers like the Boston bombers must be protected if we want ours to be protected.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#229

Post by nhebb » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 7:24 PM UTC

lurker14 wrote: post #111

nhebb wrote: post #58

Tsarnaev and his brother planted bombs. It is not unreasonable for the FBI to be concerned that they may have left other bombs in place that could detonate later. Or, that there were other people involved that we don't know about. Invoking the public safety exception to the Miranda rights seems prudent to me.

If they cared so much about public safety, they should be willing to disregard a bit of testimony to get it. It's insane that confessions are admissible at all really, since they are almost always false.

This is one of the greatest misconceptions about how interrogations are done. In the Spanish Inquisition and Salem witch trials, the tortured to get confessions. In terrorism interrogations (which do include water boarding and other tactics), the goal is to get information. The information they gather is not treated as factual unless it can be confirmed or corroborated from other sources.

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was interrogated, they only asked him questions that they already knew the answers to. They weren't immediately trying to get information. They were trying to get cooperation. Once he started answering truthfully, then they asked him questions for information.

Re: Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?

#230

Post by jcheng » Sat, Apr 20, 2013, 7:29 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #129

rayiner wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only seems weird if you think of Miranda (and various other procedural protections) as a "gotcha" to hinder police efforts, instead of what it is: a way to keep people ignorant of their 5th amendment rights from incriminating themselves. That's the alpha and the omega of Miranda. It's not a search and seizure protection at all, which is why evidence obtained as a result of a Miranda-less interrogation is nonethele…

| which is why evidence obtained as a result of | a Miranda-less interrogation is nonetheless | admissible I don't know. I think that it seems reasonable that if statements obtained by police from a Miranda-less interrogation are inadmissible, then evidence that is a direct result of those statements should be to. The statements and the evidence that is linked to them seem like they are all part of the same package.…

That may seem reasonable to you but according to Wikipedia, it's not the law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning#Consequences_of...