Sunday, August 8, 2010

You Have the Right To Remain Silent..IF You Know About It!!

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision has further whittled down the advancement of the rights of individuals and individual freedoms of the last 80 years or so.  YOU may know your "Miranda" rights.  But, chances are you learned them either by seeing them read to someone on TV or, yes, probably more than a few of us have learned them by having them read to US (do they still teach Civics in high school?  And how many of us remember it anyway?).  Plus, even if you know them, would you remember them in a time of duress?  How many of you can recite ALL of them??  Then, of course, there are cases which involve what the original decision involved:  what about people who are arrested here who do not know our constitution and perhaps have only a rudimentary understanding of English?  There are some very specific protections in the fifth and sixth amendments to our constitution which were intended SPECIFICALLY to keep government off the backs of the people and to prevent people from being "railroaded".  But, our "High Court", I suppose to be "tough on crime" or more likely to enhance their popularity or at least avoid public ridicule at a time at which much of the population, not to mention the federal government, seems to think the Constitution and the rights of the individual against the state are a matter of convenience, has decided to ignore the abuses of the past and undo the progress of the last 60 years:  http://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0802/Miranda-warning-rights-trimmed-bit-by-bit-by-high-court