Obama Wants 'Limited Flexibility' On Miranda

[midnight]

Source: Huffington Post

For the first time since news broke that the Obama Justice Department has used a "public safety exception" to effectively interrogate terrorist suspects before reading them their Miranda rights, the White House is elaborating on its legal preferences.

In his daily briefing on Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president is "interested" in "limited flexibility" with respect to laws governing how to question a suspected terrorist. This means granting interrogators, under controlled and moderated environments, the right to interrogate a suspect before reading him his or her Miranda rights.

The comments are the closest the White House has come to officially endorsing the use of the "public safety exception" -- which grants interrogators a window of time to interrogate a suspect (and admit the evidence) without reading Miranda warnings, under the rationale that the public's safety is at stake.

Gibbs stressed on several occasions that the president is still committed to the law establishing Miranda rights.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/11/obama-wants-limited-flexi_n_572190.html

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Here is the slippery slope:

"The White House, as Talking Points Memo concluded, had found a "middle ground," between those who stand firm on the constitutionality of reading suspects Miranda rights and those who think the rights should be disposed of when it comes to alleged terrorists."