Let's Expand Fifth Amendment Rights

Two days prior to his arrest for the murder of Yale medical Annie Le, Raymond Clark was picked up by the police, handcuffed, and detained for a while. Incidents like this, that take place on a daily basis, should be prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment comes close, but – like they say – no cigar. No person who is not an imminent threat to public safety should ever be physically detained or restrained by the police, without having first been charged with a crime.

We need a new constitutional amendment to make sure this kind of thing never happens again. One should be able to sue for a billion dollars if he or she is arrested without having been charged. Think about it. How much power do you want the police and/or the courts to have? Sure, we want to give them all the authority they need in order to apprehend those who are charged with crimes. No one disputes that.

However, do we really want officers of the law detaining people because they are considered "persons of interest"? Or because they happen to be acting weird or inappropriate at or near a crime scene? Where is the due process of law in all of that?

Without this added protection, no one is safe. We are all in serious danger. Who among us has not behaved strangely or suspiciously at one time or another? As it stands now, police can arrest you just because they think you might have done something ... maybe. Or they can haul you off to hold you as a material witness. They don´t even need enough evidence to charge you.

Why aren´t the supposed anti-big- government people screaming bloody murder about this kind of stuff the way they carry on at those "tea parties." Because many of them are disingenuous. They don´t like big government when it comes to taxes and spending, but they are okay with it when it overreaches in the name of law and order or "protecting the country." Shame on them and their hypocrisy!