So Miranda Didn't Blow This Case—but It Could Have!

America must update its approach to investigating terrorists, argues Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. It's great that Faisal Shahzad kept talking after being read his Miranda rights, but what if he stopped? His silence could have put people at risk. "We should treat enemy combatants as enemy combatants, whether they are US citizens (Shahzad) or not."

If America insists on using the civilian system, we must update the public safety exception (the "ticking time bomb" scenario). Law enforcement officials should be able to interrogate, without Mirandizing, people arrested committing terrorist acts. And that information should be admissible. "Otherwise," Krauthammer writes, "America will be left in the absurd position of capturing enemy combatants and then prohibiting ourselves from obtaining the information they have, and we need, to protect innocent lives."

(More Faisal Shahzad stories.)