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Backwards or forwards, my interpretation is less an oversimplification than the parent.

It may be true that the Russian government does not give these rights to it's citizens, or that these citizens yield these rights to the Russian government. Nevertheless, according to the morals listed in the DoI, the US government is founded on the belief that Russians have these rights, because they are human beings.

The distinction one must make based on my interpretation is that the US may believe that Russians have those rights, but it is not the US Government's responsibility to secure them, especially if doing so would conflict with the objective of securing the rights of its own citizens.

The Government's first duty is to its citizens, and it's the duty of citizens to hold its government accountable. It is, therefore, not the least bit surprising to see a different reaction between the idea of a government spying on others versus spying on citizens.

I also did not bother to question the relevance of bringing in Geneva convention arguments into a discussion about surveillance and privacy. If you examine carefully, you'll discover that the Geneva Convention deals with issues of life, liberty, and happiness quite directly in the sense of execution, imprisonment, and torture. Privacy, meanwhile, is a right derived from the US Constitution and not one of those alluded to in the Declaration.

Nowhere do I say that you can't argue that a Government should uphold basic rights of all humans everywhere regardless of citizenship. What you can't do is trot out the first half-phrase of the Declaration of Independence, highlight one example of a legal argument that a non-state entity had flagrantly violated terms of a convention and should not enjoy its benefits, and somehow try to connect that to Americans being really pissed off about being subject to a large surveillance program by their own Government.

> it is not the US Government's responsibility to secure them

no-one is asking the USG to secure anything (though it seems happy to jump in and do so when it suits other objectives) - the issue is direct, willful, and secret violation of human rights considered inalienable by the USG itself.

These "Rights" are unalienable.

They are in alienable. That is to say, incapable of being separated from the individual possessing them. Literally, they cannot be alienated (separated) from the person possessing them.

Your real property (home, money, possessions, even spouse, children, or other family) may be taken from you and given to someone else.

The word inalienable refers not to rights which may not be taken, but which can not be taken.

You may be deprived of these rights, but nobody else can take possession of them.

It's a subtle difference, and one few people understand, particularly in the context of natural, civil, or universal human rights, which can be argued to have a moral or socially beneficial basis, but may still be alienable.

There's also a fair amount of debate over the self-evidence, alienability, and/or naturalness of these rights. Of of their status should they become so (say, through technology).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights

> It may be true that the Russian government does not give these rights to it's citizens, or that these citizens yield these rights to the Russian government.

That isn't what the parent is talking about. He's asserting that only citizens of the US have granted the US the power to enforce the granting or ceding of rights. Non-US citizens must look to their own governments for such protection.

But, this is more like it:

> Because foreigners have not consented to being governed by the US, the rights of foreigners not to be spied on by the US government would go even further than the rights of Americans

I really hope President Obama reads this.