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Comment by spikels | Hacker News Reader

While I agree the NSA's conduct is outrageous you seem to be confused about how countries actually work. Every country treats non-citizens worse than citizens - fewer rights and benefits, more limited (if any) work opportunities, additional hassles, etc. And most countries have intelligence agencies that spy on foreign countries and their citizens often in ways that break foreign laws. Don't be so naive.

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The problem is not so much about the expected behavior of a spy agency, or how the US government justify itself "But it's only on non-citizens". That's kind of expected, like you explained.

The problem is when the medias, the public and politicians are reassuring and reassured by that "But it's only for non-citizens".

To a foreigner like me, what I see is that US citizens, medias and politicians are just fine with my fundamental rights being violated. That is as long as I'm not a US citizen... a clear statement that to those eyes, the problem is of less magnitude because I'm not as important a being as US citizens are.

Do I have less a right to privacy because I am not a US citizen? Is it more ethical or moral?

I'm not talking of my legal rights on a US soil; because legality has not much to do with morality. Really, in this argument I don't care about the NSA's goal, or all the spy agencies' goals. I care about how the public reacts; nobody cared as long as it was only about violating the privacy of those without US citizenship. Second class humans.

That's incredibly insulting. It makes me angry.

And worst of all, I feel like I can't even express myself on that topic without fearing repercussion. When one day at the airport, I'll cross the custom lanes and some automated filter will have flagged me as a national security threat because I once posted outrage about how they treat non-citizens.

Correct. You have no legal right to privacy in the US and enjoy none of the legal protections from our government that citizens enjoy (or should). You can be renditioned, spied on and wiretapped with no legal recourse in the US. Similarly Americans don't enjoy legal protections from the governments of other countries.

Now two countries may enter into an agreement not to surveil each other or their citizens. That is completely a different issue. But if you are not a US citizen or don't have a visa than the Constitution affords you no protections.

"Similarly Americans don't enjoy legal protections from the governments of other countries."

Yeah right.

What governments are extending me legal protections?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_jurisdiction#Univers...

In general, these are laws against things like war crimes. The UK (Brit here) also extends some child protection, fraud and bribery laws to cover acts worldwide, the former intended to be used to prosecute sex tourists who are unlikely to be prosecuted where they committed the offences.

I'm unsure whether any of these laws have actually specifically protected you, but the reason for their introduction is to afford people in other countries similar protection from UK-based criminals to the protections people enjoy in the UK.

Personally I hate whole "war crimes" thing. Since it WW2 it has been applied only to enemies. There was a lot of contention with the Russians over what was a war crime, since Stalin had done many of the same things as Hitler. It was generally agreed that it was only illegal when the Germans did it and Stalin went home happy.

It seems that Universal Jurisdiction allows people to prosecute me, but doesn't specifically protect me.

how about when the government makes you renounce citizenship and waive your right to sue them?

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

They should have just manned up and charged him with treason. That seems like a relatively simple case.

But my point is specifically not about legality.

There are of course differences in the treatment of citizens and non-citizens and this for good reasons like controlling immigration. But there should be no differences when it comes to human rights including privacy rights and this is what I complain about - different treatment as to human rights. And this goes beyond spying and also includes for example torturing people in Guantanamo. And yes, not only the US are breaking foreign law, but this does not at all justify this behavior.

There are no differences, both in practice and in theory, to the privacy rights of citizens and non-citizens. Everyone is spied on, and it is legal. The NSA is tasked with spying on foreign nationals. The FBI is tasked with spying on US nationals. Everyone seems to be getting caught up with these legal technicalities. Our agencies spy on everyone they can (as probably does every spy agency in the world). Our government might not even be aware of or in control of it.

Unfortunately we don't live in the world you imagine but I would join you in trying to improve the world we actually live in. I don't see how a trade and travel embargo could possibly help - it would almost certainly make things worse! Clearly there is no actual right to privacy under international law and rules vary greatly by country and are often weak in practice[1]. This is want we need to change either through treaties, constitutions or laws. I don't know where you live but in the US it would probably take a constitional amendment - a very difficult procedure - or a very broad decision by the Supreme Court - unlikely.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_law

The thing about isolating the USA was not meant as a real solution, it was just to illustrate my feelings. See also this comment [1] of mine for a clarification.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) [1] contains privacy right in article 12 [3]. The UDHR is not legally binding but the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) [4] is and contains the privacy rights, too. The USA signed and ratified the ICCPR. Maybe someone should just sue all the spying nations.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6643253

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_...

[3] http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil...

What's interesting with these declarations (and I'm surprised they don't even get a mention in the media) is that they specifically say that these rights cannot be denied based on "national or social origin". So it's basically illegal for the US to invade the privacy of foreign citizens according to the terms of those covenants. The US Constitution is probably in direct violation of it as far as I can tell since it specifically only applies to Americans.

This is the hypocracy we all accept as OK. If citizens are barred from travelling internally we call it a human rights violation (USSR, China). If foreigners are barred from travelling between countries we call it "important reasons - immigration control". Same with spying, assasination, torture, killing civilians in war, etc. Human rights don't apply to non-citizens of just about any country.

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