The Fifth Amendment - More Protection

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

One thing that comes to mind for me when I read the Fifth Amendment, my first thought is really about Guantanamo bay and the War on Terrorism prisoners there. People seem to be quick to snatch up their constitutions in defense of these war criminals, but it doesn't apply at all. The prisoners are not US Citizens, and they are not being held in the United States. However, does the federal government retain the power to hold them anyway? There is always the quote by Benjamin Franklin on their side, "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." but there are two problems with that. Benjamin Franklin was not the Emperor of The United States, everything he ever said can not be considered the law of the land, and secondly, he never actually said that.

I think the government does have the power to permanently imprison enemy combatants, captured on the battlefield or in Jimmy's corn field, based on the language of the Fifth Amendment. The founding fathers seem to have bent over backwards when writing this amendment to ensure the ability of the government to defend themselves. When you consider the motive of islamic terrorists, and the amount of destruction a very small group can do with modern technology, it is clear that this war is just as serious as others.

The other thing that comes to mind is the protection of not being compelled to testify against yourself. From a conservatives point of view, of course this provision is abused, but I would never want to lose this protection. If you can't be compelled to witness against yourself in a trial, it eliminates a major motive to torture defendants. Everyone can agree that it can not be the procedure of our police forces to catch someone, torture them until they "admit what they did", then throw them in jail. Torture in general produces unreliable results and doesn't make us any safer, because while the accused are confessing crimes the real criminals are free to commit more crimes.

People in general don't like how much the criminals are protected by the law. But history seems to show these issues as "all or nothing" types of protections. If we didn't have the 4th 5th and 6th, the police forces would simply be too tempted to take the easy road in investigating and punishing criminals. When police forces do that, everyone loses. In the system we have now, it is not a simple matter of criminals being able to run rampant, but in many places in the world the police are able to run rampant doing whatever they want.