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RE: No need for change
You are logically correct that foreign citizens should have the same privacy rights as US citizens.
I wasn't implying that at all. I was stating that a US citizen calling another US citizen, who happens to be overseas, could have their call tapped without a warrant regardless of their guilt or innocence. My question then is, why does a US citizen lose their rights with the US government just because they happen to be outside of the country?
Many of us probably feel that this kind of thing is justified in the post 911 War on Terror ... but it certainly does appear that this US administration has gone overboard in tossing out priceless justice provisions in our free society to make life easier for the intelligence agencies.
The reason is simply fear. It is the same type of fear that people have with regards to radiation; it is an invisible threat that can strike at any time withour warning. It's a powerful motivator, and politicians have always capitalized on it. The only defence is vigilance, and a healthy level of outrage.
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RE: No need for change
RE: No need for change
Thank you. That explains it.
Yes I share your outrage if telco carriers, at the behest of government officials, are breaking serious federal laws and not being prosecuted by the feds for it, and being annoyed about civil suits. They should be sued into bankruptcy in my opinion and those who requested the taps or implemented them should be sent to a federal prison for a very long time.
Our existing interception laws are nicely balanced as a result of decades of fine tuning. If government agencies have a genuine concern then they can get a warrant. If that process is too slow then attention should be given to speeding the process up - even, in extreme cases, by letting them anticipate a warrant and justify it to a judge soon after.
You are logically correct that foreign citizens should have the same privacy rights as US citizens. However in our democracy the citizens have voting rights and this gets them special consideration. It has always been the case that innocent people calling a person whose phone is under interception will be recorded. US law even tries to get around that problem by requiring that the officials monitoring the call should terminate the recording if there is no suspicious content during the first few seconds. Fat chance! In some comparable overseas jurisdictions citizens are not permitted to record even their own conversations without first warning the other person that they are doing so. The Film "Bonfire of the Vanities" was based on this aspect of our law.
We gave a stupid young citizen, David Hicks, of our most loyal ally in the War on Terror, Australia, the full shameful rendition and GitMo treatment,doing terrible things to him that we would never have been able to do to a US citizen.
Many of us probably feel that this kind of thing is justified in the post 911 War on Terror and I will refrain from the tired cliche that this makes us more like them, but it certainly does appear that this US administration has gone overboard in tossing out priceless justice provisions in our free society to make life easier for the intelligence agencies. In doing so it has given a major victory to the terrorists
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