Prior to an initial court appearance from his hospital bed, Boston bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev was finally read his Miranda rights, after already having provided possibly self-incriminating, information to federal officials.
The situation with Tsarnaev and the decision not to initially read him his Miranda rights when he was first arrested highlights the fact that we, as a nation, are on the edge of national hysteria.
Today, some are still suggesting that we have to “balance” our Constitutional rights with security, and that it was a good thing we did so by not initially telling Dzohkar Tsarnaev of his Fifth Amendment rights.
As Ben Franklin so famously asserted, if we’re going to go down the road of compromising our rights for security, we’ll deserve, and almost certainly end up, with neither.
Our Fifth Amendment rights are among our most important, because they protect us from abuse of and by the one, single institution that we have empowered to imprison and even kill us: our government.
The government of the United States is an extraordinary and precious thing, from its beginning as a noble experiment in freedom and democracy to today.
Buy, like all governments, with the power to grant life and death, it needs clear constraints.
Committing horrible crimes, even acts of terror, is wrong.
It’s brutal and horrible and criminal.
This is why it’s so very, very important that we hold ourselves to the highest standards possible in prosecuting such criminals.
The Bush Administration took us in some very, very wrong directions
One of the biggest, besides lying us into war, was to begin tearing apart these very constitutional rights, particularly those relating to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments which protect us from the most egregious abuses of government.
Now we have an opportunity to right that wrong, to put ourselves back on the side of the patriots who founded this country and all those who have fought and died to keep it a free democratic republic ever since.
It’s time to acknowledge the mistake in not reading this young man his Miranda rights as soon as was possible, and reverse this loophole that was never even voted on by us or our representatives.
But even more important, it’s time to stop carving holes in our Constitutional rights that protect us from unreasonable searches, seizures and arrests, and, instead, begin strengthening them.
America should again become a shining beacon of liberty to the world.
And that begins with repudiating the abuses of the Bush years and holding close to our founding principles.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
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