They Caught The Times Square Bomber

AvalonXQ said:
This notion is abhorrent.
You can kill an American citizen for treason, once he is properly convicted of a crime after his day in court.
But you cannot deprive him of his citizenship, of his day in court, period.
Any legislator who attempts to enact such a law should be executed for treason.
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Agreed, except for "charged with" rather than "executed for" since they need their day in court as well. :)

It pains me to admit, but they do warrant that.

DR
 
Lindsay Graham: [speaking of restricting people on the terrorist watch list from buying automatic weapons] this is not going in the right direction because we're dealing with a constitutional right.
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Stripping a person of citizenship deals with constitutional rights so that's perfectly cool. Stealing the 2nd amendment is upsetting but who really needs the 4th, 5th, 6th, 14th...etc etc?
 
willhaven said:
Wasn't his home in foreclosure?
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That couldn't have been the motivating factor as over 1.5 million homes were/are in foreclosure and this guy was the only one who figured blowing up New Yorkers would solve his problem. Do you feel sorry for this turd?
 
Cicero said:
That couldn't have been the motivating factor as over 1.5 million homes were/are in foreclosure and this guy was the only one who figured blowing up New Yorkers would solve his problem. Do you feel sorry for this turd?
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Feel sorry for him? No. Could it be a factor that drove him to do what he did? Absolutely.
 
willhaven said:
Feel sorry for him? No. Could it be a factor that drove him to do what he did? Absolutely.
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If you don't feel sorry for him, why would you suggest that his house being in foreclosure would be a factor for his behavior? If his target was the bank that owns his mortgage, not people passing by Times Square, your supposition might have a basis for your belief. But why would you float some dopey financial hardship scenario to garner sympathy for his actions rather than accept that his reasons were political?
 
ponderingturtle said:
link
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Clearly McCain has gone off the deep end. Why would you not Mirandize him? Yes, you might get more information about his co-conspirators (if there were any), but at the cost of letting the perp walk. Keep in mind this guy is a US citizen. You either try him through the normal criminal process, or let him walk. No military tribunals for an "illegal enemy combatant". It disturbs me that a lot of Republicans seem to think that the Bill of Rights is something to be respected only when it's convenient.
 
Cicero said:
If you don't feel sorry for him, why would you suggest that his house being in foreclosure would be a factor for his behavior? If his target was the bank that owns his mortgage, not people passing by Times Square, your supposition might have a basis for your belief. But why would you float some dopey financial hardship scenario to garner sympathy for his actions rather than accept that his reasons were political?
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There are plenty of killers who have had traumatic life experiences unrelated to their crimes that help push them over the edge.

It doesn't absolve him of responsibility for attempted murder, but it is a contributing factor.
 
NoZed Avenger said:
I can actually see a point, though I don't think I would agree in this case.

Assume a guy (not necessarily this one) is caught in what is believed to be a terror plot.
If the guy can give useful intelligence, it might be handy to question him without the Miranda warning. Anything he said could not be used against him at trial, but it might provide valuable intelligence about other attacks and potentially enable the authorities to stop the attack. You would have to risk not being able to prosecute the guy in custody and trade that off against any future gains.

In this case, I don't think it would be worth it. I would, however, like some indication that someone with the FBI or CIA has at least put some thought into the issue and made some decisions/guidelines.
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Considering the fact that the "bomb" he made was pretty much worthless, I'm not convinced that he wasn't a lone nut, and if he did have help from others, I'm not sure they're anybody we need to be too concerned about (though of course we'd like to catch tnem). I'm sure if they didn't Mirandize him, and he walked, the same people would be accusing Obama of incompetence. If you have enough physical evidence to nail the perp without a confession, not Mirandizing him would probably be a good idea, otherwise, it's a judgement call: Is the information he can provide worth the risk of letting him walk? In this case, I'd guess it's not.
 
CORed said:
I'm sure if they didn't Mirandize him, and he walked, the same people would be accusing Obama of incompetence. If you have enough physical evidence to nail the perp without a confession, not Mirandizing him would probably be a good idea, otherwise, it's a judgement call: Is the information he can provide worth the risk of letting him walk? In this case, I'd guess it's not.
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According to the news this morning, he's still talking with authorities. Not sure what they are talking about -- maybe Tiger Woods being three strokes behind Jim Furyk, two behind Phil Mickelson, and six behind JB Holmes in the opening round of The Players Championship? :cool:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36984715/ns/us_news-security/

In recent days, authorities in Pakistan's commercial hub of Karachi have detained four alleged members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group over their possible links to Shahzad, said two Pakistani security officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
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If they were not supposed to talk to the media, why don't they just keep their mouths shut?

Or is this a controlled leak?

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
According to the news this morning, he's still talking with authorities.
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I just wish one person associated with the authorities in this mess knew what the hell "no comment" meant. Must every.damn.thing. they are doing or plan on doing be leaked or spoken directly to the press? Might there be some things in an ongoing investigation that should be held back for just a few days, guys?
 
johnny karate said:
Good point. Luckily, Joe elaborated for us on Fox News:

and





Oh, I see. It's good to know that if I'm merely accused of terrorism, even though I will most likely have my rights of citizenship revoked, as least I'll have the opportunity to appeal. That gives me great comfort.

But now that we've established that Joe intends for U.S. citizens to be stripped of their citizenship before they've actually been convicted of any crime, my original question stands:

By what method do we determine a U.S. citizen not yet convicted of any crime is guilty of "join[ing] an enemy of the United States in attacking the United States and trying to kill Americans" so that we may then strip them of their citizenship?
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You can't revoke citizenship without going through the courts. But you also don't have to be convicted of a crime either. Just ask John Demjanjuk.
 
Unabogie said:
Graham and Lieberman are even proposing a law that will strip accused American terrorists of their citizenship (but only if they are league with foreign terrorist organizations, of course, not people like Tim McVeigh).
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You can't revoke a citizenship which was never granted in the first place. McVeigh wasn't a foreigner who came to the US, he was born here. There is simply no mechanism or way to revoke the citizenship of someone who was born here.
 
AvalonXQ said:
This notion is abhorrent.
You can kill an American citizen for treason, once he is properly convicted of a crime after his day in court.
But you cannot deprive him of his citizenship, of his day in court, period.
Any legislator who attempts to enact such a law should be executed for treason.
Click to expand...
You can certainly revoke citizenship, if it was granted under false pretenses. John Demjanjuk for example. It requires court hearings, but this is a civil, not a criminal matter.
 
willhaven said:
There are plenty of killers who have had traumatic life experiences unrelated to their crimes that help push them over the edge.
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So we should expect those 1.5 million people who have had their homes foreclosed on in the last few years to follow in Shahzad's footsteps?

It doesn't absolve him of responsibility for attempted murder, but it is a contributing factor.
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How do you know?
 
KingMerv00 said:
Stripping a person of citizenship deals with constitutional rights so that's perfectly cool. Stealing the 2nd amendment is upsetting but who really needs the 4th, 5th, 6th, 14th...etc etc?
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OK, I've been researching this a few minutes and it appears that Lieberman's proposed bill, even if passed, would have little to no effect on anything.

He wants to amend the section of US Code dealing with loss of citizenship to include joining a foreign terrorist group.

But it's actually pretty meaningless, because the SCOTUS has held, and subsequent US law has encoded, that one can only lose one's citizenship if he/she intends to do so. So basically, someone like the Times Square Bomber wannabe would have to renounce his citizenship himself before the US could do so.

It's a bill to score cheap political points but which actually does, for all practical purposes, absolutely nothing.

More info here: http://www.richw.org/dualcit/law.html#LossCit
 
Where I live, the local cable channels include FreeSpeech TV and Democracy Now.

I love how they made a point about the fact that an American Immigrant from Senegal noticed the car bomb and alerted the Police. They interviewed this guy extensively as if to make note that he was a hero.

Why to Left-Wing reporters set out to report on a preconceived idea instead of report the news?

They stressed the point that the man was a "Muslim" and they worded this fact in summation as if to strongly imply that the evil conservatives are probably going to blame Islam. Their point was that Islam was not to blame. This was obvious.

Why to Liberals have short attention spans?

The reporter failed to report that in Senegal, being a "Muslim" means "not voodoo". And that this guy probably could not quote a single passage in the Qur'ran.

All the news on these programs are like this. They report the issue only to the extent that it supports their ideology. Reporting the whole story or reaching any real conclusion never happens.
 
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KingMerv00 said:
That is particularly disgusting coming from a man who spent time in a prison without rights.
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It isn't a violation of constitutional rights not to mirandize a suspect. It's a violation of the suspect's rights to try to introduce into evidence any statements that were made before he was mirandized (excluding "excited utterances" and other exceptions, of course), or the fruits of those statements. Here, they questioned him enough to be sure that there wasn't an ongoing threat that he was involved in, and then they mirandized him. I'd say they did it exactly right. They seem to think they got enough from him post-miranda to secure a conviction. If that is what McCain meant, then there's nothing disgusting about that. I have no idea whether that is what he meant, though.

If he meant that the guy also should not be tried in a federal court, then I have a problem with it. This guy is an American citizen held on American soil. Even Glenn Beck thinks it's obvious that he needs to be given all the rights Americans are entitled to.
 
WildCat said:
OK, I've been researching this a few minutes and it appears that Lieberman's proposed bill, even if passed, would have little to no effect on anything.

He wants to amend the section of US Code dealing with loss of citizenship to include joining a foreign terrorist group.

But it's actually pretty meaningless, because the SCOTUS has held, and subsequent US law has encoded, that one can only lose one's citizenship if he/she intends to do so. So basically, someone like the Times Square Bomber wannabe would have to renounce his citizenship himself before the US could do so.

It's a bill to score cheap political points but which actually does, for all practical purposes, absolutely nothing.

More info here: http://www.richw.org/dualcit/law.html#LossCit
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Yup. The requirement of intent to relinquish citizenship is a Constitutional requirement, so this law can't change it. Besides, citizenship doesn't protect you from targeted killings, and citizen enemy combatants are not guaranteed full due process rights under Hamdi.
 
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