Tyler Durden writes: > This seems quite plausible. Supposedly, the whole Echelon deal centers > around the idea that it's illegal in the US to eavesdrop on most US > communications (ie, so do it in the UK, and vice versa).
Yes, this has become a standard way to evade the Consttution. It's illegal for the US to vacuum up communications of US citizens, so we route them elsewhere, and someone else sniffs them and reports back to us. SImilarly, it's illegal to torture the detainees, so we arrange for them to face charges in a jurisdiction that does torture, deliver them with a list of questions we want answered, and someone else tortures them and reports back to us. It's illegal for the US to commit "targeted killings" of individuals, so we arrange for a country that does engage in assassination and extra-judicial killing to know where they are, and then someone else kills them, and reports back to us. Of course such tomfoolery makes a mockery of the US Constitution, which does not grant us rights, but merely enumerates what inalienable rights we already have as human beings, so that our government will not make the mistake of trampling on them. Presumedly, all humans enjoy these rights regardless of whether they are US citizens, and the US is duty-bound to make sure these rights are respected, not only in its own actions, but in the actions of its assigns and agents. But, as we are continuously told, that was before 9/11. The reality is that we are not protected by the Constitution, but by the public outrage which puts pressure on public officials when they commit transgressions against the letter of the Constitution. The public is so cowed by the rhetortic of the War on Terrorism(tm), that they will numbly accept anything the government does, because if they don't, they are told, they are "on the side of the terrorists." At this point in time, Americans have about as much chance of embarrassing the Bush administration by waving the Constitution at it, as Russians had of embarrassing the Stalin administration by waving the Soviet Constitution. One World. One System. One Leader. And woe to him who makes the mistake of not picking the winning side. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
