4 ms·

Is there anything to protect access to search records of foreign citizens? What rights FISA, Patriot Act and the other laws regarding surveillance from US agen

• s_q_b 13y ago
  Strictly speaking, non-citizens have no rights under the American Constitution when they're not on US soil. FISA 702 grants extensive access to collect foreign communications relating to terrorism. So from a legal standpoint, there isn't anything in the Constitution that prohibits gathering the communications of those in other nations, and it's actually specifically statutorily authorized. Also, to note quickly, this is the norm rather than the exception in Western and Western-style constitutions. The American Constitution comes up in this context more often simply because of our outsize presence on the world stage.
• rayiner 13y ago
  > what exactly generates the distinction between Americans and non-Americans. It is generally assumed, that a country's law applies to two groups of people: those in its territory, and citizens of the country. The Constitution is American law, therefore it applies to two groups of people: those in the U.S., and citizens of the U.S. abroad.
  • dictum 13y ago
    Of course—and it wouldn't make sense to expect the law of the United States to apply to foreign citizens. Here's where I'm getting confused: if the laws of a country do not apply to someone who is not a citizen of that country, why do the laws of the United States let the US spy on non-Americans? (Or any other country, for that matter)
    • dasil003 13y ago
      Because a country is sovereign. It can do whatever it wants unless it steps on the toes of another sovereign actor at which point a diplomatic incident ensues. But by default a state is the highest human authority so it doesn't need permission to do anything.
      • s_q_b 13y ago
        Right. Sovereign states exist in a state of anarchy. They can do whatever they want, and the only ultimate way for one state to stop another is through force. Of course, this is the traditional Westphalian model that is beginning to cede to voluntary associations of sovereign states that solve their disputes in freely associated bodies, e.g the WTO, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court. These bodies really ultimately have no binding authority except that granted to them by the states of which they are composed, but reciprocity and social norms are starting to give us a ladder out of pure anarchy. That's really been the project of international relations of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
        • dasil003 13y ago
          Sure, but it only tells states what they can't do, by default they can do anything.