Mohammed gets Miranda, praise Allah

[Phillip H. Zakas]

hmm.  does this mean le/intelligence agencies will soon need to have a
warrant to perform wiretaps on overseas communications?  And if no warrant,
can collected evidence eventually be disallowed if foreign suspects are
brought to us courts?  slippery slope.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
[mailto:owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of George at Orwellian.Org
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2001 9:47 PM
To: cypherpunks at cyberpass.net
Subject: Mohammed gets Miranda, praise Allah



http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/17/nyregion/17TERR.html?pagewanted=all
#
#    February 17, 2001
#
#    Judge Extends Legal Rights Beyond U.S.
#
#    By BENJAMIN WEISER
#
#    A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that foreign suspects
#    who are interrogated abroad by American law enforcement officials
#    are entitled to the same Fifth Amendment right against
#    self-incrimination as suspects who are questioned in the United
#    States.
#
#    The decision, which was unsealed yesterday in Federal District
#    Court in Manhattan, is the first to apply the Constitutional
#    standard to such interrogations, wrote the judge, Leonard B.
#    Sand. It could have a broad impact on the government's
#    investigations abroad, particularly in terrorism cases.
#
#    Judge Sand also ruled that the familiar Miranda warnings, which
#    are traditionally read to all suspects in the United States,
#    must also be administered to foreign suspects who are interrogated
#    by American agents abroad.
#
[snip]
#
#    "What he has done," said H. Richard Uviller, a law professor
#    at Columbia University, "is universalized this provision of the
#    Bill of Rights."
#
#    Professor Uviller said the decision was "significant insofar
#    as it controls the trial of accused foreign terrorists in American
#    courts."
#
#    "They are treated almost exactly as if the interrogation had
#    taken place at One Police Plaza," the professor said.
#
#    "It's a sound opinion," he added, "on a novel subject justified
#    by all of the best authority, as well as good sense."
#
#    The government will not appeal the ruling, said Herbert Hadad,
#    a spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Manhattan,
#    who refused further comment.
#
[snip]
#
#    The judge found the question important because of the "increasing
#    regularity" with which American law enforcement officials "are
#    dispatched and stationed beyond our national borders."