US may amend Miranda Rights for effective interrogation

Washington, May 10 (ANI): After facing flak over providing Miranda Rights to Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, the Obama administration is in the process of framing a law that would enable investigators to question terror suspects without informing them of their rights.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder has averred that Shahzad was trained by Taliban on Pakistani soil.

There has been mounting pressure on the Obama adminstration to treat terror suspects as military detainees, and enemy combatants waging war on the US.

In an unprecedented departure from its stance defending the provision of Miranda Rights, the Government is paying heed to Holder's concerns.

"We're now dealing with international terrorists, and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face," the New York Times quoted Holder, as saying.

John O. Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism adviser strongly echoed Holder's views, and is convinced of Shahzad's Talibani affiliations.

"He was trained by them," Brennan said. "He received funding from them. He was basically directed here to the United States to carry out this attack. Investigation's ongoing," he added.

The US administration is now hastening to fill the glaring lacunae in its justice system. Cold-blooded Shahzad was questioned for just two hours before being read out his rights.

The administration relied on an exception to Miranda for immediate threats to public safety.

That exception was established by the Supreme Court in a 1984 case in which a police officer asked a suspect, at the time of his arrest and before reading him his rights, about where he had hidden a gun. The court deemed the defendant's answer and the gun admissible as evidence against him, the paper said.

Miranda was formulated with a view to prevent confessions that were obtained through coercion and intimidation, however, critics have for long argued about the possibility of its misuse.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate, said Sunday on "This Week" on ABC that he supported Holder's proposal.

"I would not have given him Miranda warnings after just a couple of hours of questioning," Mr. Giuliani said. "I would have instead declared him an enemy combatant, asked the president to do that, and at the same time, that would have given us the opportunity to question him for a much longer period of time." (ANI)