> I'm surprised the EU was comfortable with an executive EO instead of, say, a treaty. Especially because it's going to be absolutely meaningless. Administrat

> I'm surprised the EU was comfortable with an executive EO instead of, say, a treaty. Especially because it's going to be absolutely meaningless. Administration opinion since Bush, Jr. has been that no foreigner has any rights an American is bound to respect, unless they're on American soil, which requires a handful of courtesies. They can announce this policy with all pomp and circumstance and on the same day have the Attorney General write a secret brief explaining his theory that it doesn't bind the government in any way, which becomes secret law. Royal pronouncements and secret laws. What a democracy. ----- edit: they literally dragged out Eric Holder the other day to complain that a court order barring intelligence agencies from backchannel communications with social networks was going to cause terrorist attacks and child molestation. The guy who coined "too big to fail" but wasn't saying it sarcastically, and who admitted that his legal opinion on due process in the case of the assassination without trial of American citizens was that whatever process they used to decide what they would do was "due process."