May 9, 2010
The Holder (Miranda) Backstroke
Attorney General Holder now says the administration believes the Taliban in Pakistan were behind the failed bombing attempt in Times Square. He also admits by his actions that treating terrorist suspects as criminals is not a good idea. He seeks legislatively to expand the public safety exemption to the Miranda rule whereby the authorities can question a suspect before reading him his Miranda rights and still have the evidence thus obtained be admissible in court against him. From Politico:
Top Obama administration officials jettisoned the theory that the Times Square terror suspect acted alone on Sunday, revealing that the Taliban in Pakistan - known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan - hatched and bankrolled the failed plot.Eric Holder, making his first Sunday shows appearance as Attorney General, told ABC's Jake Tapper on "This Week" that investigators have "now developed evidence that show that the Pakistani Taliban was behind" last weekend's attempted bombing of Times Square."We know that they helped facilitate it," Holder said. "We know that they helped finance it, and that he [suspected bomber Faisal Shahzad] was working at their direction."Holder also said for the first time that the administration is open to modifying the Miranda rules that protect criminal suspects in custody, and will work with Congress to revise its public safety exemption, which allows for delaying the warnings in the event a suspect has knowledge of an immediate danger to the public, to adapt to an age of terrorism.
When this administration promised to close Gitmo in a year and treat terrorism as a criminal law enforcement matter, people who knew better were critical. As each day passes and the difficulties of this unrealistic treatment of a serious problem became obvious even to the most clueless, the Administration has been forced to backstroke, though they still have not admitted they were dead wrong and Bush was right.