In case you missed it, Senator Lugar, clearly a big fan of world government, has tried to slip a treaty through the Senate that would literally give legal law-enforcement authority over US citizens to foreign governments -- ANY foreign government who signed the treaty.

This treaty is being sold as a treaty to help with cyber crime including child pr0n. I guess "it's for the children" still gets support. Of course, that's not what the treaty would actually do. As James Plummer notes, the treaty would obligate the US to investigate US citizens for breaking laws of other countries.

So, if China were to sign on to the treaty and a US citizen did something that would be illegal in China and used a computer to do it, China could demand that person be arrested and extradited to China. How quickly do you think Chinese dissidents and political refugees in the US would be targeted?

In addition, if you were to make a blog post that said, "Hitler was a nice guy," France could demand your extradition so they could fine and jail you -- and the US would be obligated to do so.

Yes, it's very clear that this would violate nearly every single right that US citizens are guaranteed by the Constitution, but that's just and old, outdated, historical document that was written by slave owners and has no purpose today -- or at least that's what Luger and supporters of this treaty think.

Posted by: Ogre at 12:07 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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