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Why is the Obama administration now taking terrorism so seriously? In the immediate aftermath of the May 1 Times Square bombing attempt, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- in typical fashion -- rushed to minimize the plot, calling it a likely "one-off" attack. But scarcely a week later, Attorney General Eric Holder is seeking a significant rollback in suspects' Miranda rights -- so as to better head off the next one. Talk about whiplash. President George W. Bush was savaged by Obama's liberal allies for supposedly "shredding the Constitution" in the War on Terror, but he never called into question...

Hmmm. Maybe we could start with not reading them their rights. Recognizing they are Islamic Jihadis out to destroy the country. Maybe we could return to enemy combatants, rather than change Miranda. Maybe. Then again, when you’ve told the world you intend to capture and try these folks in a civilian court under the protections afforded in the US Constitution in order to show the world that we are something that I am not quite sure what we’re supposed to be showing, and then you discover that the old cops and robbers routine doesn’t protect us in war, you have...

In the wake of the Times Square bombing plot, the Obama administration said on Sunday it wants to work with Congress on possible limitations of the constitutional rights afforded terrorism suspects — even for American citizens. Attorney General Eric Holder said changes may be needed to allow law enforcement more time to question suspected terrorists before they are told about their Miranda rights to a lawyer and to remain silent under interrogation. As the nation debates how to proceed against terrorist attacks, particularly as they have become the work of individuals who are difficult to detect in advance, the administration...

"(Law enforcement) interviewed Mr. Shahzad ... under the public safety exception to the Miranda rule. ... He was eventually ... Mirandized and continued talking." -- John Pistole, FBI deputy director, May 4 All well and good. But what if Faisal Shahzad, the confessed Times Square bomber, had stopped talking? When you tell someone he has the right to remain silent, there is a distinct possibility that he will remain silent, is there not? And then what? But let's assume you're wedded to the civilian law-enforcement model, as is the Obama administration. At least make an attempt to expand the public...

Suppose the U.S. Senate passed a law which gives the Federal Government the power to do the following to American citizens who are suspected of a crime: 1.Forbid interrogators from telling the person of their right to remain silent. 2.Forbid interrogators from telling the person of their right to legal counsel. 3.Deny the person habeas corpus protection (the government cannot keep a person in custody without charge). 4.Do all the above not only to a person suspected of a crime, but also to a person who may know about a possible future crime.

Locals severely beat up nine pirates, killing two on the spot, when they were attempting to loot a boat in a remote char area on the river Jamuna in Daulatpur upazila of Manikganj yesterday. Police rescued and arrested seven pirates in a critically injured state. The dead or injured robbers could not be identified immediately. Police also retrieved several machetes and locally made weapons to be used by the pirates. Shawkat Hossain, officer-in-charge of Daulatpur Police Station, said 20 to 25 cattle traders on an engine boat were heading towards a cattle market at Bera in Pabna to buy cows....

Police told Van Chester Thompkins he had a right to remain silent, and so he did. But his silence meant he never officially told officers he wasn't going to talk, and so they kept interrogating him. A couple of hours later, Thompkins implicated himself in a murder. Several Supreme Court justices indicated Monday they were going to let that confession stand, saying suspects should tell police that they want to be silent to take advantage of that Miranda right.

Once again, the liberal, clueless media goes where they shouldn't. Via Newsweek's aptly named blog, Declassified, we learn for the first time that: "U.S. intelligence officials appear to have obtained access to what could turn out to be a significant trove of phone numbers, photographs and documents detailing the links between Al Qaeda's leaders in northwest Pakistan and the terror group's increasingly menacing affiliate in Yemen, two counter-terrorism sources tell Declassified." The arrest, made in late January, had not been made public until now...until Newsweek spills it:...

Upon his capture, the most beautiful words a terrorist can hear are the following: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?” If you read the above paragraph, you have just been "Mirandized." That is the Miranda Warning that law enforcement officers must recite...

Republicans may have a hard time keeping up their talking point about how reading Miranda rights to the Christmas Day bomber represented a dangerous new direction under President Barack Obama. It turns out that that back in December 2001, Richard Reid — the “shoe bomber” — was read or reminded of his Miranda rights four times in two days, beginning five minutes after being taken into custody. Furthermore, the Bush administration specifically rejected the idea of a military tribunal — another step that Republicans have argued should have been taken in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to...

Holder's decision to Mirandize the Christmas bomber was bad enough. Telling the world he was talking again waseven worse Security: The administration says the Christmas bomber is now cooperating with authorities. We thought they got all the information he had in a 50-minute chat. So just why are we letting our enemies know he's talking? In any war, it's vitally important that you know what your enemy is planning and doing, just as it's important that your actions and plans remain secret. And when you know about your enemy's plans it's important they don't know that you know. We were...

AG Eric Holder said he knows we are at war during his November 18, 2009 testimony before the Senate Judicary Committee concerning his decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four 9/11 conspirators in federal court. Unfortunately, Mr. Holder does not walk that talk. (See video of Fox News report here.) Attorney General Eric Holder says he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in the civilian system with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government. In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorney general says that the...

In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the "American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists." Obama said: "I fundamentally disagree with that. Now -- do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter -- down the block? Of course not." President Obama ought to call Attorney General Eric Holder. In a five-page letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Holder lays out in exhaustive detail exactly why these folks deserve Miranda rights and why...

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in the civilian system with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government. In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the attorney general wrote that the FBI told its partners in the intelligence community on Christmas Day and again the next day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally.

Any cop, prosecutor, or defense lawyer will tell you that the quickest way to get a suspect to stop talking to you is to read him his Miranda Rights and get him a lawyer. The Obama Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, has now begun dancing, two-stepping, ducking and dodging about, in earnest, as to who actually made the Christmas Day decision to Mirandize Muslim Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – and why. It was a terrible mistake, whether he was to be sent to a Civilian Court or handed over for a Military Tribunal. I tell you...

President Obama has swung full circle on his stance on whether non-citizen terrorists deserve Miranda rights. As you can see from the video clip of the March 22, 2009 edition of 60 Minutes (text below at appx. 2:25 mark), President Obama told CBS's Steve Kroft that he was against providing Miranda rights to enemy combatants, or terrorists. As we all know, the president and his attorney general, Eric Holder, have turned 180 degrees on this, including offering Miranda rights to the Christmas Eve, "underwear", or "crotch" bomber....(VIDEO)

The White House is not disputing a report that FBI agents questioned accused Northwest Airlines bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for just 50 minutes before deciding to grant him the right to remain silent and provide him with a court-appointed lawyer -- a decision that led Abdulmutallab to stop talking and provide no more information. The news came in an Associated Press reconstruction of Abdulmutallab's first hours in custody. The AP reported that Abdulmutallab "repeatedly made incriminating statements" to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who originally took him into custody. Then Abdulmutallab made more statements to doctors who were treating...

Don't tell me we learned all he knew about the plotters in Yemen in one sitting!In August of last year, the Washington Post ran a fascinating article titled "How a Detainee Became An Asset: Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding." The article describes the lengthy process that CIA agents went through to extract the intelligence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that was vital to stopping future plots and rounding up Al Queda terrorists. Former CIA Director George Tenet declared that this program saved countless lives and was "worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency...

Gibbs: 'Right decision' to read underwear bomber his rights White House press secretary Robert Gibbs Sunday defended the decision to read so-called alleged underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights after just 50 minutes of interrogation, saying that ”FBI interrogators believe they got valuable intelligence and were able to get all that they could out of him.” “That decision was made by the Justice Department and the FBI by experienced FBI interrogators, Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But make no mistake Abdulmutallab was interrogated and valuable information was gotten by those experienced interrogators.” After he was read his...

It was health care that nationalized the special election for what we now know is the people’s Senate seat. But it was national security that put real distance between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. “People talk about the potency of the health-care issue,” Brown’s top strategist, Eric Fehrnstrom, told National Review’s Robert Costa, “but from our own internal polling, the more potent issue here in Massachusetts was terrorism and the treatment of enemy combatants.” There is a powerful lesson here for Republicans, and here’s hoping they learn it. One of the great frustrations of the Bush years was the fact...