Last week the Supreme Court ruled five to four that “suspects must explicitly tell police they want to be silent to invoke Miranda protections during criminal interrogations,” according to the Associated Press. In other words, you do have the right to remain silent and to a lawyer, but only if you know any better and remember to announce your silence aloud. But maybe you haven’t heard that yet another of your civil liberties has been stripped away from you. Because after all this has gone virtually unreported by the “news”.
New Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor disagreed with the absurdity of the ruling, noting in her dissent, “Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent—which counterintuitively, requires them to speak.”
Sadly, according to The Los Angeles Times, the “ruling is in line with the position taken by the Obama administration and Supreme Court nominee U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan. In December, she filed a brief on the side of Michigan prosecutors and argued that ‘the government need not prove that a suspect expressly waived his rights.’”
It makes you wonder about Obama a bit, or maybe the presidency in general. Maybe in today’s world the personality behind the desk isn’t as important anymore. You definitely got a sense there was difference between the motivations and philosophies of the Bush and Clinton administrations, but other than the lack of born-again Christian crusading fervor that drove the Bush administration there hasn’t been much change on the civil liberties front.
An impressive video created by a German design student named Alexander Lehmann. This same film could be created for any number of countries - including the UK and USA. The most depressing part is that this kind of thing is no longer shocking (enough).
I caught Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech on HBO earlier this week and I highly recommend everyone sit down and watch it. I can’t say it was the absolute best documentary ever made, but it was full of very valuable information and stories every American, and world citizen for that matter, should know about.
It offered a fascinating perspective on the evolution of the concept of free speech throughout the nation’s history, and examined how civil liberties have been trampled on in the name of national security in a post-9/11 world. The filmmaker is the daughter of noted First Amendment attorney, Martin Garbus. The documentary looks into his own experiences as a First Amendment lawyer, including the Pentagon Papers case and insights as a Jewish lawyer who once defended a neo-Nazi group’s right to protest.
The film also sheds light on all of those who were arrested and detained along with other protesters during a nonviolent demonstration at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City. In the process of their defense, lawyers unearthed evidence that their organization and other peaceful groups had been subject to extensive surveillance by the NYC Police Dept.
See upcoming airings on HBO here, and for those of you without it, get on Netflix here.
