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Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

  • Total voters
    33
It applies to citizens and should to any people legally in the USA. That's it.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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It doesn't apply to other countries just like UK's supreme laws do not apply to us.
 
matchlight said:
According to your Wikilaw research, written by some unknown America-hater, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was actually slapped by those mean, icky American fascists! Can you imagine? Even worse, they grabbed him in the face, and they made him stand up and deprived him of sleep! Just think of the agony! I'll bet those mean men even refused to read him his favorite bedtime story!
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You have to be real gullible to believe that stuff. There was waterboarding and who knows what else? Literally who knows as they destroyed 92 videotapes?

Ex-CIA official says tapes destroyed to prevent al Qaeda reprisals | Reuters

matchlight said:
And your Wikilaw research further reveals that the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch--and not least, Mohammed himself--think that he was tortured! Who gives a good G--damn what they think? For years it has been a claim of leftist propaganda, meant to slander the United States and arouse sympathy for the leftists' fellow America-haters, Islamic jihadists, that the U.S. practiced torture on some of these rats. That is false.
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It is true.

matchlight said:
It should have, maybe--but it never did.
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The fact you claim it should have indicates your obvious bias and the fact you don't even believe in what your country supposedly (but never really did) stand for.

And you'll not find many people here calling me either the words leftist or muslim lover, trust me on that one.


matchlight said:
The resulting constitutional right to habeas Muslim jihadist bastards at Guantanamo now enjoy is satisfied by Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which are conducted in a courtroom there. The transcript of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's is available online, for all those who are interested in how those mean American Gestapo agents are treating their wrongly-accused darling.
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All the hiding from the public leaves open the possibility of all sorts of manipulation, as has happened in past history of political enemies of the United States.

One needs but to look at the list of "confessions" of planned terrorist attacks of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to realize the utter ridiculousness of it. The only thing missing is KSM stating he built a time machine and placed a bomb beneath the waterline on the Titanic, killing thousands.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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"People NOT in the US"... Citizens on vacation? Military members in a war zone?

And what Supreme Court decision are you referring to?
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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The question is not well phrased.

If you are outside the US, you are not under US jurisdiction. US law does not apply, so your rights are not really applicable.

For example, let's say Ed Snowden pops up in London. The FBI cannot travel to London, detain him, bring him back to the US. The UK government has to seize him and deport him to the US. The Bobbies are not required to read Snowden his rights (though he would require a Miranda warning once turned over to US custody and arrested).

However, as a US citizen who allegedly committed a crime within the US jurisdiction, he was still eligible for various protections as outlined in the Constitution and elsewhere. E.g. law enforcement still needed to get a warrant to search his property, even though he had left the US. He still has the right to refrain from commenting on his case. I don't know if US law prohibits the use of compelled testimony gathered abroad, I'm pretty sure that's not admissible in court.

Or: The US Constitution recognizes copyright. Treaties with other nations respect copyrights across international borders, to an extent -- e.g. if you received a copyright in the US, then your copyright will be honored in a foreign nation as though it had a local copyright. This can produce a discrepancy, e.g. a copyright period shorter abroad than in the US, or vice versa. However, we might make the case that your rights to control your intellectual property are protected abroad, and foreign content creators are protected by US law and the Constitution, regardless of where they abide. And of course, your copyrights are valid even if you leave the US, temporarily or permanently.

I'm also not sure which SCOTUS ruling established that you don't have rights if you're outside the US, or the context for any such case.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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It only applies to American citizens and those on our soil. That's why GITMO was built, after all. To deny suspected militants of the rights the rest of us enjoy.
 
Peter King said:
Why should somebody outside of the US have anything to do with the bill of rights of the United States of America?
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For starters, Americans do actually travel outside the US. Shocking! ;)

Also, foreigners can affect US citizens. For example, someone running a Nigerian 419 scam is affecting US citizens; they might be subject to US law. Or, a foreigner who directs covert or terrorist actions from outside the US might be subjected to US law. Assuming the government doesn't outright assassinate that individual (something they do quite frequently), that individual might still be eligible for certain protections.

Let's say the military arrested Osama Bin Laden, instead of killing him. I'm fairly confident they would not be empowered to ship him off to Saudi Arabia, let the Saudis torture him for a few months, then use those "confessions" against him in a US court of law. They often used extraordinary rendition after 9/11 -- including sending people to Syria, by the way -- and could use the information for investigations, but not for legal proceedings. (AFAIK.)
 
HowardBThiname said:
It only applies to American citizens and those on our soil. That's why GITMO was built, after all. To deny suspected militants of the rights the rest of us enjoy.
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And to torture them, to deprave of any humanity left and to give them show trials.
 
Visbek said:
For starters, Americans do actually travel outside the US. Shocking! ;)
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Where we are subject to the laws of those lands, obviously.

Also, foreigners can affect US citizens. For example, someone running a Nigerian 419 scam is affecting US citizens; they might be subject to US law. Or, a foreigner who directs covert or terrorist actions from outside the US might be subjected to US law. Assuming the government doesn't outright assassinate that individual (something they do quite frequently), that individual might still be eligible for certain protections.
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Only if the US has an "agreement" that makes the other country hunt down the scammer/criminal - or we take action into our own hands - and violate that nation's rule of law in the process.

Let's say the military arrested Osama Bin Laden, instead of killing him. I'm fairly confident they would not be empowered to ship him off to Saudi Arabia, let the Saudis torture him for a few months, then use those "confessions" against him in a US court of law. They often used extraordinary rendition after 9/11 -- including sending people to Syria, by the way -- and could use the information for investigations, but not for legal proceedings. (AFAIK.)
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That really has no bearing on whether our rights are extended (by us) to people of other nations.
 
reinoe said:
If the Bill Of Rights applied to people outside the U.S. then Guantanamo would have been shut down ages ago. It's still a reprehensible and embarrassing thing to hold people indefinitely without trial but it's not against the law.
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The Bush administration did initially set up the camp there because they thought it was outside US jurisdiction while under US control. SCOTUS ruled otherwise, around 2004? Ooops.

Gitmo prisoners are entitled to due process. The difference is that they are being tried using military proceedings, not civil ones. As such, the rules are substantially different. E.g. they can be held indefinitely, although there was a process (not a trial, but some type of hearing) to try and justify their detention.

I don't know if that fed into Obama's desire to shut down the camp. I don't think so, though.
 
a351 said:
Does French law apply to US citizens? How about Zimbabwean?
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Not law, rights. When dealing with the US, if we believe in the rights we grant, we should exercise them universally.
 
I believe that the founders intended these rights be applicable to all people.
 
Boo Radley said:
Not law, rights. When dealing with the US, if we believe in the rights we grant, we should exercise them universally.
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How do you propose to do that? Should we just unilaterally invade every country that's not offering their citizens the same right we are and FORCE them do so?

In reality, we only have jurisdiction here - at home - unless we intend to use our military to "convince" others.
 
HowardBThiname said:
Where we are subject to the laws of those lands, obviously.
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That depends.

A US citizen, in a foreign nation, who violates a foreign law, is not entitled to the protections of US law.

A US citizen who committed a crime in the US, then travels internationally to avoid US law enforcement, still has rights. Police still need a warrant to search the fugitive's property; the fugitive can be tried in absentia, but are still entitled to due process, and so forth.


Only if the US has an "agreement" that makes the other country hunt down the scammer/criminal - or we take action into our own hands - and violate that nation's rule of law in the process.
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I'm not so sure. In the hypothetical OBL example, I don't think OBL could escape prosecution if he was not extradited properly.


That really has no bearing on whether our rights are extended (by us) to people of other nations.
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I'd say it does. If US law specifies that compelled testimony is not valid in a court of law, then in that case we are extending a Constitutional protection to a non-US citizen when they were outside the US.
 
HowardBThiname said:
How do you propose to do that? Should we just unilaterally invade every country that's not offering their citizens the same right we are and FORCE them do so?

In reality, we only have jurisdiction here - at home - unless we intend to use our military to "convince" others.
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No one said anything about enforcing them in other countries. My comment is when dealing with the US, how we behave. Our values governs how we behave. We assume people in our custody have rights. When we invade other countries, for example, our values govern our actions. As I said, we either believe in our values or we don't.
 
HowardBThiname said:
Where we are subject to the laws of those lands, obviously.
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The BoR should also apply to US citizens on foreign soil.

Take for example a US citizen publishing a newsletter highly critical of the US government. It would clearly be a 1st amendment violation for the government to censor that newsletter if the citizen was in New York. What about if he was in the UK? Would the US instigating the British government to censor his be a 1st Amendment violation? I kind of think it would.
 
Gaius46 said:
The BoR should also apply to US citizens on foreign soil.
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Perhaps it "should." But, it doesn't. That's why our State Department regularly issues travel warning to Americans going to certain countries. Because our rights don't mean squat over there.

Take for example a US citizen publishing a newsletter highly critical of the US government. It would clearly be a 1st amendment violation for the government to censor that newsletter if the citizen was in New York. What about if he was in the UK? Would the US instigating the British government to censor his be a 1st Amendment violation? I kind of think it would.
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Typically, our nation respects free press, but not always. Photographers have been banned from some of Obama's events.
 
HowardBThiname said:
Perhaps it "should." But, it doesn't. That's why our State Department regularly issues travel warning to Americans going to certain countries. Because our rights don't mean squat over there.



Typically, our nation respects free press, but not always. Photographers have been banned from some of Obama's events.
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I'm not saying that the BoR should apply to how France deals with US citizens in France. I'm saying it should apply to how the US Government deals with US citizens in France.

I'm a US citizen. Can the US government censor my speech while I'm in England even though that speech is protected by the BoR?

Can the FBI raid my hotel room in Paris looking for evidence of a crime, or ask the French to do so, even if that raid would be unconstitutional had I been in a hotel in New York.

Can the US government convene a trial against me at the US embassy in Italy and legally deny me right to counsel? I just found out that embassies are legally the territory of the host country. There are special considerations, local authorities, can't for example enter without permission, but the US embassy in Italy is Italian territory not US territory.

I think the answer to all of these is no because I believe the BoR applies to all interactions between US citizens and the US government regardless of where they happen to be.

I would also point out that some US laws are enforceable against US citizens regardless of where they live. US citizens are generally required to pay US income taxes if they live abroad. US laws against bribing foreign officials are enforceable even if the bribery occurs in the foreign officials home country. And of there's the ever popular law against US citizens purchasing Cuban cigars anywhere in the world.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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It is United States law, and therefore does not apply outside of the United States. Most of the rights in it should be basic human rights, but our Constitution has no force in other countries.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
Click to expand...

For us non US types, what was the ruling?
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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Occasionally SCOTUS gets it right.

But then, I also think that Dread Scott was good law at the time.
 
rocket88 said:
It is United States law, and therefore does not apply outside of the United States. Most of the rights in it should be basic human rights, but our Constitution has no force in other countries.
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Correct, and well said, until we let them into our country, at which time our civil rights apply to them as well, for as long as they are here legally.
 
Kal'Stang said:
Does the Bill of Rights apply to those people not in the US?

Personally I think it does considering that it is a restriction on our government. However SCOTUS has previously stated that it does not.
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Do you mean citizens of other countries?
 
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