Category Archives: Civil Liberties

04.22.13
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ABC News: Boston Bombing Suspect to Be Tried as Civilian Over Strident Objections

The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, will not be tried as an enemy combatant, the White House said today, rejecting calls from some lawmakers to do so.

“He will not be treated as an enemy combatant. We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters today. “Under U.S. law, United States citizens cannot be tried in military commissions. And it is important to remember that since 9/11, we have used the federal court system to convict and incarcerate hundreds of terrorists.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., today blasted the decison as “premature.”

“It is impossible for us to gather the evidence in just a few days to determine whether or not this individual should be held for questioning under the law of war,” Graham told reporters.

In the wake of 9/11, Congress passed a joint resolution called the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which granted the president the power to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

A Supreme Court ruling three years later seemed to suggest that a U.S. citizen captured while fighting for al-Qaida could legally be held as an “enemy combatant,” but left unanswered was how to proceed if the accused is nabbed on U.S. soil.

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Click below for the full article.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/boston-bombing-suspect-civilian-strident-objections/story?id=19016171#.UXX-l1_D_HY

04.22.13
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National Constitution Center: Constitution Check: Are there limits on questioning a bombing suspect?

Lyle Denniston looks at the issues of Miranda warnings, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tsarnaev’s protections under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, and the public safety exception.

The statements at issue:

“The police can interrogate a suspect without offering him the benefit of Miranda [warnings] if he could have information that’s of urgent concern for public safety. That may or may not be the case with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The problem is that Attorney General Eric Holder has stretched the law beyond that scenario.”

– Emily Bazelon, a columnist for Slate.com, in an article on April 19, “Why Should I Care That No One’s Reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev His Miranda Rights?” 

“[As of Saturday night] Authorities have not read him his Miranda rights, which include the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Federal law enforcement officials said they plan to use a public safety exception, outlined in a 1984 Supreme Court decision, ‘in order to question the suspect extensively about other potential explosive devices or accomplices and to gain critical intelligence.’”

– Washington Post story on April 21, by reporters Joel Achenbach and Robert Barnes, “Authorities seek answers in Boston Marathon bombing.”

We checked the Constitution, and…

Some three decades ago, the Supreme Court for the first time gave police and federal agents the authority to avoid giving criminal suspects Miranda warnings about their constitutional rights, when the public safety justified that suspension. That authority, given in the 1984 decision of New York v. Quarles, has since been expanded by lower courts so that, even if a suspect has claimed the right to remain silent or the right to a lawyer, the questioning can go on if the public safety threat remains.

How long such questioning can continue, and what kinds of questions can be asked, is now the source of considerable uncertainty, as officials have developed interrogation policies they think are necessary in dealing with terrorist incidents. But one thing does remain certain: the Constitution still requires that the police not use outright coercion in order to get answers even to the most pressing questions. If authorities want to use the evidence that they gain by such questioning, that evidence must have been given voluntarily.

In the case of the 19-year-old suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon and other crimes after that, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, there is no doubt that he has some protection under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment against being forced to implicate himself. He is a U.S. citizen, so he has the legal shield of the Constitution. (On April 2, we discussed the rights during terrorism investigations of suspects who are not U.S. citizens; those rights may differ.)

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Click below for the full article.

http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/04/constitution-check-are-there-limits-on-questioning-a-bombing-suspect/

04.21.13
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Daily Kos: The Slow Death of the Fourth Amendment

The government has been chipping away at the 4th Amendment since the start of the War on (some) Drugs. The stop-and-frisk policy in New York is just one of the latest steps in destroying privacy in this country.

Now the DHS has decided that the freedom from suspicionless searches doesn’t apply near the nation’s borders.

 “We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits,” the executive summary said.

 The President George W. Bush administration first announced the suspicionless, electronics search rules in 2008. The President Barack Obama administration followed up with virtually the same rules a year later. Between 2008 and 2010, 6,500 persons had their electronic devices searched along the U.S. border, according to DHS data.    According to legal precedent, the Fourth Amendment — the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures — does not apply along the border. By the way, the government contends the Fourth-Amendment-Free Zone stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s actual border.

Did you catch that? 100 miles inland. That includes shipping ports. That means that around 2/3rd of the nation’s population, around 190 million, lives in these areas that are free of the 4th Amendment restrictions.Photobucket

The DHS has already set up 33 “internal checkpoints” deeper in the country.

The expansion of the police state in America would be mindboggling to anyone living as recently as the 1980’s or 1990’s. It doesn’t seem to matter which political party is in power.

Click below for the full article.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/10/1185972/-The-slow-death-of-the-4th-Amendment

04.20.13
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Bloomberg: Obama Decision on Interrogating Suspect Draws Criticism from Civil Liberties Groups; Republicans argue still not tough enough

The Obama administration’s decision to interrogate the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing without first warning him of his rights has sparked criticism from both sides of the political spectrum about the best way to prosecute terrorism cases.

Justice Department officials have said their move to question bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, without reading him the Miranda warning of his right to remain silent is a necessary legal tool in cases of domestic terrorism.

Civil liberties groups said yesterday the tactic raises concerns about infringement of Tsarnaev’s constitutional rights, especially since he’s a naturalized American citizen. At the same time, four Republican lawmakers criticized the administration for not being tough enough, saying Tsarnaev should be designated an enemy combatant with no right to counsel……..

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Holder’s push has been criticized by civil liberties groups that say delaying Miranda warnings poses risks to the constitutional rights of suspects.

“Obama’s Justice Department unilaterally expanded the ‘public safety exception’ to Miranda in 2010 beyond anything the Supreme Court ever authorized,” Vincent Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal advocacy group that focuses on civil-liberties litigation, said in a statement yesterday. “Each time the administration uses this exception, it stretches wider and longer.”

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As we stated before, Republicans and Democrats (at least some of the key players in both parties) seem to think that the constitution only applies some of the time and to a subset of the citizenship.  What do you think?

Click below for the full article.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-21/obama-decision-on-interrogating-suspect-draws-criticism.html?cmpid=yhoo

04.20.13
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Yahoo News: Boston bombing suspect’s arrest presents intelligence opportunity, legal challenges

BOSTON – Keeping bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev alive and able to answer questions would be a badly-needed intelligence coup for terror investigators, a former U.S. District Attorney told Yahoo News on Saturday.

“The fear of law enforcement has always been the small, insular cells that are kind of under the radar,” said Richard Roper, a federal prosecutor for 21 years. “Either the lone wolf or the small cells … they’re difficult to obtain intelligence on. I hope they get some good stuff out of him.”

On Saturday, Dzhokhar was reportedly clinging to life and under heavy guard at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He apparently suffered gunshot wounds to the neck and leg during separate gun battles with authorities on Friday.

Tsarnaev, 19, and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, are believed to have planted the two backpack bombs near the finish line of Monday’s Boston Marathon. The twin explosions killed three people and injured 180 others……..

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“There’s a need to immediately question the guy whether you Mirandize him or not to save lives,” Roper said. “The question is how far do you go before it turns into a custodial interrogation?”

Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina went a step further, suggesting Dzhokhar be treated as an enemy combatant like a soldier captured in war. The move drew the ire of longtime McCain aide and speechwriter Mark Salter.

“My friend, Lindsey Graham, is wrong on this,” Salter posted on his Facebook page. “However unforgivable his crimes, he’s a US citizen, arrested on US soil, with, at this time, no known associations with foreign terrorist organizations at war with the U.S. To declare him an “enemy combatant,” and deny him his rights is un-American.”

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What do you all think, does the constitution only apply to some citizens or all?

Click below for the full article.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/boston-bombing-suspect-arrest-presents-intelligence-opportunity-legal-183858408.html

04.19.13
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ABC NEWS: Talk Begins of April 22 Online ‘Blackout’ in CISPA Protest

ht cispa law nt 130419 wblog Talk Begins of April 22 Online Blackout in CISPA Protest

No sooner had the House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act  (CISPA), on Thursday, than word began spreading of an online protest. Some are suggesting the protest take the form of a “blackout” – going offline for 24 hours, displaying censorship bars over content or  posting statements of opposition to Internet censorship — similar to last year’s opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

Supporters on Twitter have begun tweeting the hashtag #CISPABlackout to promote the proposed April 22 “blackout.”

Though proponents see the bill as a strong measure to fight cyber threats and better protect citizens, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, The Internet Defense League and the Electronic Frontier Foundation oppose CISPA because of the jurisdiction it would provide for the federal government to procure personal information shared with private-sector entities such as Google or Facebook.

The original draft of CISPA first passed the House in 2012, but died in the Senate and was publicly opposed by the White House. “The administration strongly opposes [CISPA], in its current form,” Obama’s Office of Management and Budget said in a statement last year.

The office of the president hasn’t changed its tune for CISPA 2013 either, recently issuing a statement: “The administration still seeks additional improvements, and if the bill, as currently crafted, were presented to the president, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.”

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Click below for the full article.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2013/04/talk-begins-of-april-22-online-blackout-in-cispa-protest/

04.19.13
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The Motley Fool: Obamacare and Sequestration Crush UnitedHealth

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/19/obamacare-and-sequestration-crush-unitedhealth.aspx