Obama backtracking on promises for greater civil liberties?

Hours ago the AP announced some unsettling news: the Obama administration will be asking the Supreme Court to overturn a 1986 ruling that forbids police to question suspects in custody unless an attorney is present.

As the AP noted:

The administration's position assumes a level playing field, with equally savvy police and criminal suspects, lawyers on the other side of the case said. But the protection offered by the court in Stevens' 1986 opinion is especially important for vulnerable defendants, including the mentally and developmentally disabled, addicts, juveniles and the poor, the lawyers said.

This seems at EXTREME ODDS with several proposed reforms posted on the White House's webpage which acknowledges, "America is facing an incarceration and post-incarceration crisis in urban communities." Two solutions to this crisis are suggested on the Administration's Civil Right's Agenda webpage:

Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support: President Obama and Vice President Biden will provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders, so that they are successfully re-integrated into society. Obama and Biden will also create a prison-to-work incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates.

Eliminate Sentencing Disparities: President Obama and Vice President Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.

It seems more than a little disingenuous to call for an end to sentence disparities and then remove one of the greatest protections against coercion and false evidence currently in our legal arsenal. It's also extremely disconcerting to see the Obama administration putting more effort into post-incarceration interventions than into steps designed to avoid unnecessary incarceration in the first place. Does the prison industrial complex have the administration over a barrel or something?

Beyond the practical problems this reversal could present to Obama's stated goals of reduced incarceration rates, this move just seems patently unconstitutional, violating the right against self-incrimination and the right to legal representation .

Here's hoping the Supreme Court refuses to hear the case, or that the Administration decides to reconsider its position.

Before we begin...

I am writing this first post for Wonder Blog on the same day that the Chicago-Sun times has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (though I am posting it a day later).

I've learned this information by reading another newspaper's website, this did not cost me a dime. I have linked to the article above, if people click on my blog to read my post about the newspaper story I'll make money.

This perfectly illustrates the crazy dynamic that now exists (and is dissected ad nauseum) in the media world. The means of distribution and payment that fueled the newspaper industry have been dispersed, but the actual product--the written, edited pieces of information--remains largely the same. This isn't necessarily a problem; many people still want to read the morning paper, just not necessarily on paper. However until the clueless publishers can find a way to turn their moribund carcasses into cyber successes we owe it to our own curiosity to keep their newspapers going. Buy a newspaper, go out and buy one, do it daily or do it weekly. Throw some money into the hats of these sinking businesses. Increased readership alone won't save newspapers (no one is ever going to pay a newspaper to advertise a room for rent again) so it won't incentivize dumb CEOs to avoid change. What an increase in readership might do is add a small increase in revenue to the companys' quarterly reports and give Newspapers a reprieve as they try and find their footing.

Wonder Blog's motto is not sarcastic, I sincerely believe an ability to write cogently about current events and the world at large hinges on the survival of "old media." So please, save a blog, buy a newspaper.