David Skaggs: “I understand there is some frustration on the other side about all of this. This resolution has been cleverly drafted to…”

“I understand there is some frustration on the other side about all of this. This resolution has been cleverly drafted to appear, at first reading, perhaps, even to be innocuous. But let me just suggest to my colleagues that we ought not to rush to judgment in this matter. It has much larger constitutional consequences then may be first apparent. The gist of the resolution is to exert the power and the authority of this House to have people waive their constitutional rights, and we need to examine the significance of that proposition very carefully. First, let us acknowledge that confrontations and disputes in which the Bill of Rights are invoked often come up under difficult and unseemly circumstances. That is simply because the Bill of Rights was designed to protect minority and unsavory points of view, the less powerful, those out of step with the majority, to protect such people from the potentially overzealous power of government. When a criminal asserts a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, it is easy to condemn it and even easier to forget that that privilege exists to protect us all from an overzealous government.”