CDR: Re: NZ: Sweeping powers for spy agencies

[Tim May]

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


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