Joe Lieberman bill would strip suspects' citizenship

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36741.html

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) thinks he’s found a work-around on the whole Miranda rights debate for U.S. citizens accused of terrorism: Strip their citizenship and ship them to Guantanamo.

Lieberman plans to introduce a bill that would amend a decades-old law aimed at yanking citizenship from U.S. citizens who fight for a foreign military.

“I’m now putting together legislation to amend that to [specify that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights,” Lieberman said Tuesday.

Such a law would potentially cover terror suspect Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born American citizen charged in connection with the attempted car bombing in New York City’s Times Square. He was apprehended Monday night at the city’s John F. Kennedy airport after he boarded a flight to Dubai.

“If you have joined an enemy of the United States in attacking the United States and trying to kill Americans, I think you sacrifice your rights of citizenship,” Lieberman said.

There is one exception to the existing law: Americans are allowed to serve in the Israel Defense Forces without losing their citizenship.

At a press conference Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said Shahzad was questioned without a Miranda warning under the so-called public safety exception but was later read his rights and continued to speak with investigators.

In a civilian trial, a judge can toss out evidence taken from a suspect who has not been read Miranda rights.

The incident is the most serious terrorism attempt in this country since Christmas Day, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to detonate a bomb aboard a Northwest Airlines flight. Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, was read his Miranda rights, sparking an outcry from Republicans — who argued he should have been interrogated as an enemy combatant.

Lieberman said he believes the administration should have used the recently created High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group in those interrogations.

“My feeling is that if they [HIG] make a judgment that this was a terrorist act, the person should be turned over to the military,” Lieberman said.

That’s not allowed under current law if the suspect is an American citizen, because U.S. citizens cannot be tried in military commissions. The 2006 law that outlines guidelines for the commissions authorizes them only for “alien unprivileged enemy belligerent[s].”