Thursday, July 08, 2004
RELIEF FOR THE WEARY:
You've probably memorized it by now: the infamous "Miranda" warning you see given to arrested criminals on all the TV cop shows. Well, here's some legal info for you. Those warnings are not to protect the wrongdoers, they are to protect the police. Once the officers read those rights, they can ask any sort of manipulative, sneaky, downright intimidating questions they want -- and they do.
Now the Supreme Court, nipping at the hand which appoints it, is saying that even terrorists have all sorts of legal rights. How long before the "Justices", having thrown off their reins, start requiring all that same legal mumbo jumbo for the Mad Bombers What Bomb At Midnight? Well, a great opportunity has arisen to preclude any worries from that front. Our soldiers and Homeland Security types can have a "query the thugs in jail" pass by giving them more than a mere Miranda warning. All they have to do is print and give out copies of a new, convenient (and cheap) text of the entire Constitution. Let them claim they don't know their rights then.
You've probably memorized it by now: the infamous "Miranda" warning you see given to arrested criminals on all the TV cop shows. Well, here's some legal info for you. Those warnings are not to protect the wrongdoers, they are to protect the police. Once the officers read those rights, they can ask any sort of manipulative, sneaky, downright intimidating questions they want -- and they do.
Now the Supreme Court, nipping at the hand which appoints it, is saying that even terrorists have all sorts of legal rights. How long before the "Justices", having thrown off their reins, start requiring all that same legal mumbo jumbo for the Mad Bombers What Bomb At Midnight? Well, a great opportunity has arisen to preclude any worries from that front. Our soldiers and Homeland Security types can have a "query the thugs in jail" pass by giving them more than a mere Miranda warning. All they have to do is print and give out copies of a new, convenient (and cheap) text of the entire Constitution. Let them claim they don't know their rights then.
A villager in the Indian Himalayas has sought recognition from President George W. Bush after copying by hand the US constitution in a book only two centimeters (three-quarters of an inch) long ... it took him 196 hours and 25 minutes to write down the US constitution in the 124-page book that weighs 2.17 grams, or three-quarters of an ounce.
