Silence is not an option

Not anymore

I'd be a little understanding of this if I didn't see police and other authorities routinely trying to sidestep positive affirmations or questions asserting their Constitutional rights (something like "am I free to go officer?" or "I don't consent to searches", etc). I do think that asking for a lawyer and stating affirmatively that you don't want to answer any questions are probably fine in theory.

...but putting someone in a room for three hours and asking them questions with very little said in response, if anything usually beyond terse replies, doesn't really strike me as a very ideal manner of treating the problem of a person's right to silence and non-incrimination when dealing with police. And in particular, the fact that the police must inform you of these rights when they arrest people for a crime (the premise of issuing Miranda warnings) they will be charged with seems like it's a bit superfluous for that person to then have to say "I'd like to remain silent then". Of course, in the case itself, the guy didn't quite remain silent, but if someone is rather uncooperative and uncommunicative for several hours, it does strike me as a little odd that police would use that as a means for claiming that they are cooperative and answering questions without coercion (ie, having waived their rights).

The one surprise, which I'm not about to complain about, was Sotomayor, a former prosecutor, writing on the dissent.

The other interesting angle to that decision is its probable application to terrorism related interrogations. It does seem like the court ruled that time-related silences are not invocation of rights, so in theory a non-coercive (read: non-torture) interrogation could proceed for many hours at a time on these grounds so long as the subject hasn't invoked their rights positively, such as by requesting a lawyer be present. But it also seems like the court still required police and authorities, overlooking the limited exception carved out by Quarles and currently used by the FBI in counter-terrorism applications under somewhat specious but occasionally efficient grounds, to read people under arrest by US authorities their (Miranda) rights in the first place. We're still not at a point like that requested by hard-liners. But it's coming dangerously closer in some respects.