Then again, if we are just going to hold people for an indeterminate amount of time without charging a crime simply to extract information, then by all means, no Miranda warnings needed.

Then again, that’s a whole different ball of wax.

I’m sure you smell my sarcasm.

Regarding the law itself, I have a high degree of concern for placing in military custody persons captured within the US who have committed no crime. This seems to be specifically allowed in this proposal. Within the borders of our country, the FBI and National Guard should be able to address any non state of emergency situation, and be able to follow through using civilian courts and prisons. Internationally, I am far more permissive with regard to the use of military force, but these should still be confined to the US constitution (which means protection from self-incrimination in legal proceedings).

A person under intense interrogation will literally confess to anything, making such a confession is useless. (If useful, verifiable information can be extracted, that would be another thing, but would not be useful in a legal proceeding to determine punishment.)

The bottom line is that Toyota cars are still having dangerous problems and they had to be forced into the recalls. Toyota has hidden its recalls in the past using various strategies but sooner or later it all catches up to you. You reap what you sow.

I own a Toyota car, and haven’t even checked whether it is part of the recall. I am still far more likely to be killed by a fellow driver behind the wheel of a perfectly operating Ford SUV than from a malfunctioning accelerator. 43,313 people died in 2008 due to automobiles. How many of those deaths do you think were due to Toyota malfunctions? Driving is a massively dangerous activity, and these defects must have been pretty slight to have such a small impact.

Its not so easy being the largest automaker.

Especially not when you are dealing with a national government as a competitor. Ford is probably the only US auto maker I would even consider buying from after the scam run by the other two to steal my money.

Quality is a funny perception. When a manufacturer makes widgets there is an acceptable amount of defects. Lets say 10 widgets per 1000 made. If your only making 100000 widgets you would have 100 bad widgets and they might be hard to notice, easy to replace and not worthy of a recall. But if you make 10000000 widgets you will have 10000 bad widgets. No longer easy to hide and the media finds out about it. Multiply this by the number of parts in a car and you can see why the largest automakers have quality issues if they start cutting corners like Toyota has. One worker in Japan worked himself to death at 30 years of age recently. Google it.

I’ve yet to see strong evidence that Toyota is cutting corners, but if they are then they will see their market share decrease, just as US auto makers saw theirs virtually disappear due to providing crappy quality and high prices.

The media is treating this no differently then how it treated Ford when it had Bridgestone Tire problems on their Explorers back around 2001.
The problem was traced back to one factory which had been bought by the Japanese. The workers were out on strike as the Japanese were trying to bust the union and the bad tires were made my scab labor.

Interesting. Seems that the problem was due to hiring insufficiently experienced staff, in the process proving that the union didn’t need government protection. If all skilled staff belong to the union, they have negotiating power independent of government controls. I’m not at all clear what that has to do with Toyota though. Was this an attempt at racism against the Japanese?

Maybe, just maybe, if the Big Three quit making crap and quit over-paying their workers, they’d actually have the ability to make a car people want to drive. You know, without begging for money from uncle Sam from a private jet.

2.) The fact that it doesn’t distinguish citizenship is probably hardly an accident, given the recent reports of home-grown suspects who are citizens. This bothers me. We should be ever vigilant for any attempts at “loopholes” for “protection” which have anything to do with our basic rights here.

Apart from the fact that this law would apply to US citizens, it also cites the reasons for indefinite detention as:

A person is considered a “high value detainee” if they fulfill one of the following criteria.

(1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate.