At 6:36 AM -0500 10/30/00, John Young wrote:
What is fascinating about this evolution is the screaming by domestic victims when they learn that means and methods are being applied to them that they wholeheartedly approve when aimed at foreigners, immigrants, criminals and other stigmatized targets such as radicals, anarchists, commies, neo-nazis, dissidents and whoever is different from you and me, well, no doubt you include me in your bullseye and me you when we get a whiff of the terrifying scent spread by the malodor-spreading criminal justice mongerers.
Just to respond to this particular part of your good rant, the U.S. Government has not been pushing what we think of as Constitutional rights in other countries for many decades. (Yes, I understand that other countries are not bound by the U.S. Constitution...) For example: -- the aforementioned spying agreements...the U.S. gets around the limits imposed by the C. by having foreign governments do the spying, a la the UKUSA Agreement, etc. -- when the U.S. invades Somalia, they disarm the population -- when the U.S. moves into South America, as "advisors," they educate the secret police in how to create death squads, how to torture suspects, how to assassinate opposition leaders. (Cf. the CIA manuals, College of the Americas, direct testimony, etc.) -- when the U.S. casts its lot with the Zionists, the U.S. supports the forcible movement of Palestinians from their land -- similar anti-B.O.R. measures supported in other parts of Europe, most of Africa, much of Asia, including support for limitations on press freedom, local censorship (so long as it suppresses the opponents of "our" interests), licensing, etc. Basically, the position of U.S. officials is that the rights outlined in the Bill of Rights are meant to apply to U.S. persons. Somalians are to be disarmed, Columbians are to be assassinated, Palestinians are to be herded into camps, and so on. I'm not arguing that U.S.-style approaches should be extended by force into foreign countries, only that certainly the U.S. Government should not be party to setting up regimes inimical to our stated beliefs in what civil rights should be. ---Tim May -- ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.