The Associated Press story on the suspect who attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight about to arrive in Detroit covered details of initial FBI interviews with him prior to his being read his right to remain silent. Legally, local investigators are allowed to question a suspect without reading rights if an immediate threat to public safety is an issue. After this suspect was read his rights, he remained silent.

The News Tribune version of the AP story, however, deleted a very key part of the original AP story. The original story said there was no effort to call in the elite federal High-Value Interrogation Group that President Obama ordered created in a high-profile speech in August 2009.

Dennis Blair, the director of National Intelligence, said the unit should have been called in, but FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress the unit was “not ready for action.” Other sources have said the reason the unit was not ready was because it has yet to be formed.

I feel much safer now knowing that the much-vaunted, “White House supervised,” high-value interrogation team may someday actually exist and that this foreign-born suspect is currently exercising his constitutional right to remain silent.