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Comment by oscardelben | Hacker News Reader

One thing that really puts me off is the emphasis on protecting privacy for american people. Why should privacy be a luxury of people who just happened to be born in a particular piece of land? Why is it ok to spy on everyone else?

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Easy enough: only american people (or people in america) enjoy the legal protection of the american constitution. So the only fight that can be fought here is for americans. You'll need to convince your own government to fight for your rights.

please note: IANAL, but that's what I gathered so far.

I'm not sure convincing my government would make any difference since I'm connecting to an american server right now just to type this (I'm also working in the US). It's like saying that if you're connecting to a german server and they're violating your privacy then you should fill a complaint with your own government.

Am I the only one who sees this and thinks, "Why are international borders so important on the Internet?" Maybe we need to be thinking in terms of protocols and designs that do not allow the government to violate privacy rights regardless of where particular computers happen to be located...

The US Constitution doesn't "protect" anyone except insofar as it mandates/prohibits actions of the Federal and State governments, and those mandates/prohibitions apply wherever agents of the state act under constitutional authority.

Bingo. It's amazing how many people don't understand this.

If you have issues with privacy in your own country, take it up with your government. The US Constitution only guarantees rights to US citizens.

It's the US and UK governments mainly that are sh*tting on everyone else's rights within their own country that is the problem. Taking a singular view on this will not solve the problem, your government will just shift the processing to one of their "partner" countries.

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