Comments on: More on Surveillance & Detention http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2006/01/more_on_nsa_sur.html Dispatches from a Small Business Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:39:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Max Lybbert http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2006/01/more_on_nsa_sur.html/comment-page-1#comment-2255 Max Lybbert Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:40:19 +0000 http://coyote-blog.com/wordpress/2006/01/more_on_nsa_sur.html#comment-2255 <p>I agree in principle (that there is no moral difference between spying on foreigners and spying on US citizens), but I believe I come to a different conclusion. Then again, it may not be all that different.</p> <p>/* Does the government of Great Britain (or Russia, or Iran) have the right to wiretap your phone calls at will without warrant or review just because you are not a citizen of their country?<br /> */</p> <p>I would rewrite that as:</p> <p>"Does the government of Great Britain (or Russia, or Iran) have the right to wiretap your phone calls at will [according to its national laws] [when you are a citizen, or potential sympathizer of a country or foreign power/terrorist organization that they are fighting a war with]?"</p> <p>And my answer would be "yes."</p> <p>/* Does the government of Great Britain (or Russia, or Iran) have the right to detain you indefinitely without access to a lawyer or embassy if a powerful person in their government declares you an enemy combatant?<br /> */</p> <p>To which I would answer "if I am an 'enemy combatent' because I was captured as part of military operations during a war that the foreign country was fighting, then yes." My undertanding of POWs is that this is what happens (POWs are often traded with the enemy country, but they don't get access to lawyers to challenge their prisoner status; they *may* be charged with crimes of various kinds, and in those cases they get access to lawyers).</p> I agree in principle (that there is no moral difference between spying on foreigners and spying on US citizens), but I believe I come to a different conclusion. Then again, it may not be all that different.

/* Does the government of Great Britain (or Russia, or Iran) have the right to wiretap your phone calls at will without warrant or review just because you are not a citizen of their country?
*/

I would rewrite that as:

“Does the government of Great Britain (or Russia, or Iran) have the right to wiretap your phone calls at will [according to its national laws] [when you are a citizen, or potential sympathizer of a country or foreign power/terrorist organization that they are fighting a war with]?”

And my answer would be “yes.”

/* Does the government of Great Britain (or Russia, or Iran) have the right to detain you indefinitely without access to a lawyer or embassy if a powerful person in their government declares you an enemy combatant?
*/

To which I would answer “if I am an ‘enemy combatent’ because I was captured as part of military operations during a war that the foreign country was fighting, then yes.” My undertanding of POWs is that this is what happens (POWs are often traded with the enemy country, but they don’t get access to lawyers to challenge their prisoner status; they *may* be charged with crimes of various kinds, and in those cases they get access to lawyers).

]]> By: Matt http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2006/01/more_on_nsa_sur.html/comment-page-1#comment-2254 Matt Wed, 18 Jan 2006 09:25:11 +0000 http://coyote-blog.com/wordpress/2006/01/more_on_nsa_sur.html#comment-2254 <p>I wouldn't have nearly as much of a problem with the British or the Iranians spying on me as I do with the Americans doing so, for one very simple reason. If I have some just cause to believe the British or Iranian governments might consider me an enemy, it is trivially easy for me to remain outside the reach of the armed men who obey the orders of those regimes. (Indeed, such a decision would be simply prudent, whether they were spying on me or not.) But I _live_ in the United States. Other than fleeing the country of my birth in terror, I don't have a choice about whether I'll be in easy range of the goons whose marching orders come from Washington. And considering how none of us are ever securely more than four years away from becoming enemies of the President of the United States, Americans' liberty interest in keeping our phone conversations private from the US government is, while not unique, definitely more pronounced than is such an interest among non-Americans.</p> <p>(I have just as much loathing, of course, for the fact that non-Americans also have THEIR governments spying on them. My only dispute here is that there's a serious qualitative difference between a privacy violation by one's own government and the same violation when committed by a foreign government.)</p> I wouldn’t have nearly as much of a problem with the British or the Iranians spying on me as I do with the Americans doing so, for one very simple reason. If I have some just cause to believe the British or Iranian governments might consider me an enemy, it is trivially easy for me to remain outside the reach of the armed men who obey the orders of those regimes. (Indeed, such a decision would be simply prudent, whether they were spying on me or not.) But I _live_ in the United States. Other than fleeing the country of my birth in terror, I don’t have a choice about whether I’ll be in easy range of the goons whose marching orders come from Washington. And considering how none of us are ever securely more than four years away from becoming enemies of the President of the United States, Americans’ liberty interest in keeping our phone conversations private from the US government is, while not unique, definitely more pronounced than is such an interest among non-Americans.

(I have just as much loathing, of course, for the fact that non-Americans also have THEIR governments spying on them. My only dispute here is that there’s a serious qualitative difference between a privacy violation by one’s own government and the same violation when committed by a foreign government.)

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