You Have the Right to Remain Silent
This morning I spent an hour debating David Cole of Georgetown on Wisconsin Public Radio. The question was whether we should read Miranda rights to suspected terrorists. Not a lot of sparks. I tend to believe that the public safety exception to Miranda should be broad enough to include (in some way that requires further definition) questioning undertaken to protect the public from an ongoing terrorist operation or to determine that there is no such ongoing operation. I don’t agree that Miranda is completely off the table just because the suspected charge is terrorism. While Professor Cole wants a more immediate geographically bound exception that I’d draft, the devil is in the details.
On more fundamental level, it doesn’t seem that deferring Miranda rights is among the most difficult legal trade-offs in the war on terror. Both its value to national security and its imposition on the rights of suspects is limited.
I would have preferred to discuss Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, a case currently pending before the Supreme Court in which Professor Cole represents the plaintiffs.