At approximately 11 p.m. on May 3, 2010, federal agents boarded a plane at John F. Kennedy Airport that was preparing to take off for Dubai and arrested Faisal Shahzad, a passenger on the plane and the alleged Times Square bomber, suspected of rigging a Nissan Pathfinder with explosives, gasoline and fertilizer on May 1 and leaving it to explode at the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 45th Street in New York City. After taking him into custody, agents reportedly questioned him for nine hours without reading him the Miranda warnings. The next day, after being advised of the Miranda warnings, Mr. Shahzad waived his rights, including his right to a speedy arraignment and, while remaining in government custody, continued to answer questions for two full weeks until he was brought to court for arraignment on May 18, 2010, and provided with court-appointed counsel.
Mr. Shahzad is being prosecuted as a criminal defendant in federal court, reigniting the controversy about whether terrorism suspects should ever be tried as criminals and sparking new debate about whether the government should give terrorism suspects Miranda warnings. Indeed, after the arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” who attempted to detonate a bomb aboard an international flight in December 2009 as it approached Detroit Municipal Airport, politicians and commentators argued the decision to read him the Miranda warnings prevented the military and intelligence community from obtaining critical information about terrorist networks and was “inexcusable.”1 Others, like Glenn Beck, a commentator on Fox News, have argued that Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized United States citizen, is entitled to “all the rights under the Constitution” and should have received the Miranda warnings just like any other criminal suspect.2
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