Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what's the "public safety exception" about then? We're starting from the position that, absent a public safety concern, the defendant's right to know his rights is greater than the law enforcement interest in not encouraging the defendant to exercise them, and if the cops don't read the Miranda rights then the statements aren't admissible. Now throw in a public safety issue -- the cops have to interrogate this guy…
The public safety exception strikes me as equivalent to the enemy combatant exception - a way to just skirt civil liberties when it seems relevant.
They're not ways of skirting civil liberties. They are ways of defining the contours of their protections.