UN Report Finds NSA Mass Surveillance Likely Violated Human Rights 261
An anonymous reader writes A top United Nations human rights official released a report Wednesday that blasts the United States' mass surveillance programs for potentially violating human rights on a worldwide scale. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also praised whistleblower Edward Snowden and condemned U.S. efforts to prosecute him. "Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected," she said. "We need them."
In particular, the surveillance programs violate Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
So now that the UN said it, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So now that the UN said it, (Score:5, Insightful)
No. That means that the UN is now a terrorist organization and US will no longer give a shit about resolutions passed by it.
Re:So now that the UN said it, (Score:4, Insightful)
No. (...) US will no longer give a shit about resolutions passed by it.
The US never did give a shit about UN resolutions. It only cares that other countries do.
Re:So now that the UN said it, (Score:5, Interesting)
wrong. the US now does not care about anything but itself.
rights belong to the highest bidder or power holder.
that means: not you or me and certainly not some powerless speech-giving org.
the US is out of control. we all know this now and we all see it.
the question is: who has enough power to control the current top-dog and put him back in his dog-house?
THAT is the question. the US is not going to give in willingly.
I guess its at last a tiny half-step - having the ROW realize that the US is out of control and is violating the rights of, pretty much, anyone who dares try have a private thought or conversation.
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>
I love what my country used to stand for. but now, its nothing that I would recognize as my own homeland, anymore.
and I give fuck-all who thinks what of me, for I am speaking the truth, here. and everyone with half a mind knows it.
I could not possibly agree more. I'm tired of being polite to the soccer moms of both sexes who raise eyebrows when I do something as simple as point out how easily some TSA directive can be defeated, and who roll their eyes when I complain about my government violating my rights. Thank God my wife sees the value in saying the truth out loud, and hasn't demanded I go along to get along with all this horse shit.
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That's different to the status ante... how?
Re:So now that the UN said it, (Score:5, Insightful)
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Take it up with Obama. After all, he's a constitutional scholar.
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Guantanamo Bay was (and is) a legal black hole. Past U.S. Supreme Court decisions held that not only U.S. Citizens but also foreigners on U.S. soil have Constitutional protection. So housing Taliban prisoners in U.S. prisons would've automatically granted them U.S. Constitutional rights, including the right to a speedy trial, the right to know what they're accused of, and a guarantee of legal counsel. Well guess what? Guantanam
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Well guess what? Guantanamo Bay isn't on U.S. soil.
This seems like one of those 'clever' loopholes that aren't really loopholes at all if you take into account the spirit of the constitution. Then it is a clear constitutional violation, just like the TSA, free speech zones, and all the other things the government tried to 'justify' using awful, awful logic.
Re:So now that the UN said it, (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it just means that your country has more in common with countries like Iran or Soviet era Russia than you'd like to admit.
Did you know that the US is one of only 3 countries that haven't ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? The other two are Somalia and South Sudan.
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No, it just means that your country has more in common with countries like Iran or Soviet era Russia than you'd like to admit.
You haven't seen my anti-US-government rants, have you?
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If I have I wouldn't recognize it as you - I don't look at the usernames, just the comments.
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Re:So now that the UN said it, (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it just means that your country has more in common with countries like Iran or Soviet era Russia than you'd like to admit.
You haven't seen my anti-US-government rants, have you?
These days the U.S. Constitution would count as an anti-US-government rant so that's not exactly a distinguishing feature.
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Well played, AC. Well played.
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These days the U.S. Constitution would count as an anti-US-government rant so that's not exactly a distinguishing feature.
Indeed.
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Are you saying that you *do* like to admit how bad our government has gotten? I'm all for acknowledging it, but I most assuredly don't like it. Still I suppose some people do enjoy having something worthwhile to rant about.
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I like to bring it up. I'm happy to admit it. That's how it gets fixed. Or, at least, I know you can't fix it without talking about it.
I'm unhappy with the state of things. I'm even unhappier when people paper it over.
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In Soviet Russia, US Rants against YOU.
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The US has legitimate objections to the CRC. Around here we believe that things like homeschooling and closed adoptions are in the best interests of some children.
There's a lot of noise around the subject but 99% of it is misunderstanding of law.
Regarding "closed adoptions" the CRC avoids using any language which attributes a biological connection between parent and child. They always use terms related to the "family" or to the legal status of the child. A child given up for adoption ceases the "familial" bond with the biological parent and the state then must look out for the best interests when placing the child with a new family or caring for it. This language
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Meaning the state needs to monitor the child's educational development (usually done by a test once or twice a year) to make sure they are getting an education, but they do not have to force anyone into a particular institution.
My state currently does not require that the state do anything, so this would affect homeschooling. Standardized tests are not only useless, but they are poison. Many people take the results seriously, but they just test for rote memorization and encourage people to teach to the test.
But you also said, ""home school" is a valid "school" under Article 28 so long as it is meet's the state's own educational standards." So, would anything really change, or am I misunderstanding something?
From one extremist in Liberty to another (Score:2)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
- said by Abraham Lincoln on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
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You still are a terrorist for demanding any rights at all. After all, "rights" could make it harder to fight terrorists, so you clearly support them. As to how bad the problem already is, just look how hard it is to find any of the doubtless millions and millions of terrorists! They have near perfect camouflage and the war against them will be lost if they are not identified and killed soon!
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Do you really believe the UN thinks the US Constitution is a good thing?
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Consttutional government (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the US Constitution specifically grant the government the power to interfere in X? If not then doing so is unconstitutional, because the constitution explicitly states (repeatedly, in several different ways) that the federal government has *only* those powers granted to it by the constitution. Which is why something as simple as banning alcohol required a constitutional amendment. You can thank legal gymnasts and an apathetic population for the steady expansion of federal powers beyond what has been explicitly granted. For example: despite the fact that Prohibition required a constitutional amendment to implement, the Supreme Court held that a similar ban on on marijuana was constitutional because it could theoretically be sold across state lines, and thus the federal government's legitimately granted power to regulate interstate commerce could be applied, even against individuals growing small quantities for their own consumption. You really want to tell me that's not a load of power-mongering BS? That line of reasoning gives the federal government control over *all* commerce within the US, completely gutting the initial restriction of only regulating interstate commerce without ever having to get a pesky constitutional amendment passed to expand it's powers.
Re:Consttutional government (Score:4, Informative)
Does the US Constitution specifically grant the government the power to interfere in X? If not then doing so is unconstitutional, because the constitution explicitly states (repeatedly, in several different ways) that the federal government has *only* those powers granted to it by the constitution. Which is why something as simple as banning alcohol required a constitutional amendment.
Not exactly. For one thing, whether the US Constitution explicitly grants the Federal government to "interfere in X" is subject to interpretation, and has to be because the US Constitution makes a lot of common sense assumptions about how government works: that's why so many early Supreme Court rulings invoked (British) common law. The critical catch-all clause in the Constitution is Article 1 Section 8: "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." Even at the time of the drafting and ratification of the Constitution people debated the degree to which this clause expanded the powers of Congress.
James Madison argued in Federalist 44 [constitution.org] that because it would be futile to attempt to anticipate all of the specific powers Congress (and the Federal government) would need for all time, the Constitution *must* grant the federal government any power necessary to fulfill the obligations the Constitution proscribes. He directly stated that trying to enumerate all of the powers the Constitution grants with explicit text would be ridiculous.
Because the question of what is "necessary and proper" is not an absolutely objective standard and the drafters of the Constitution knew this the Constitution can't be said to express explicitly enumerated powers. Even strict constructionists concede at least some of the power granted by the Constitution is implied by the intent of its text and not explicitly stated. And if you're concerned about any expansion of the Constitution's powers as being power-mongering, consider this: the Bill of Rights does not guarantee anyone in the US actually has those rights: it guarantees that the Federal Government can't intrude on them. Nothing anywhere in the text of the Constitution explicitly prohibits state governments from trampling all over, say, someone's First Amendment rights to free speech. The notion that state governments must honor the same limitations that the Constitution places upon the Federal government is another one of those power-mongering BS interpretations of the Constitution, namely the incorporation doctrine of the Fourteenth Amendment. Read the 14th Amendment: nowhere in the text does it say that States must incorporate the protections of the Bill of Rights, and nowhere in the first ten amendments does it state those protections apply to State governments, only the federal government. The incorporation doctrine of the Supreme Court was created over fifty years after the passage of the 14th Amendment, and argued that the implication of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment implies State governments must incorporate the same protections as the Federal government. But try to find that in the text.
Incidentally, the eighteenth amendment which prohibited the sale of alcohol doesn't prove that banning alcohol requires a Constitutional Amendment. The opponents of alcohol pushed for a Constitutional Amendment because it was the strongest possible ban they could strive for and they felt it was achievable. Not only could they ban alcohol sales in every State without having to convince every state to ratify the amendment, once ratified the only way to overturn the ban would be to generate enough support to amend the Constitution again: the ban could not be trivially overturned the way any Congressional law can be by successive Congresses. Its also important to note history: t
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
The founding fathers weren't exactly the pillars of individual freedom you seem to think they were. They were an American centric elite and plutocracy trying to displace a Britsh centric elite and plutocracy, mostly so they could have a bigger cut of America's growing wealth.
You can tell because most of those constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights didn't apply to people who weren't affluent(i.e. who didn't own land), women, native American's, blacks/slaves and indentured whites. They applied mostly to white men who had wealth (at least enough to own land).
They actively prevented people who were not white, male and affluent from voting or holding office. They were mostly slave owners themselves, and they were for the most part very affluent and owners of very large real estate holdings. They were all 1%'ers.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were carefully designed to inspire support from enough people in the colonies for their Revolution to succeed, and to create the illusion of freedom, but they had no intention of relinquishing their power and control over the levers of government when it their Revolution did succeed. That plutocracy has never relinquished that control in the more than 200 years since.
The NSA along with the DHS, FBI, ATF and IRS are means for maintaining that control.
The Internet let a genie out of a bottle and created dangerous potentential for the rest of us to organize and try to win some of that power and control back.
When faced with the twin crises, and excuses, that were 9/11 and the 2008 crash it was nearly inevitable that The Powers That Be in the U.S. and U.K. would exploit every tool at their disposal, mainly computers and networks, to try to put a lid back on their control of their increasingly restless and networked homelands and to try to maintain their domination of the world as a whole in the face of increasing challenges.
The 2008 crash in particular resulted in widespread global disillusionment with the fact economies and governments are rigged to benefit the ruling elite and screw everyone else. When ruling elites start feeling that heat they trot out their police states, always have, always will.
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You forgot about the other 545 people we also need to impeach. (One vice president, 9 supreme court justices, 100 senators, and 435 representatives.)
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That's irrelevant to whether or not he should be impeached.
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Yes, yes, we all know, they established an aristocracy and rights were only really for first-class citizens like themselves and not women, the poor and blacks. However, the government has since been modified to include supposedly everyone in the first-class citizen pool.
The founders had a remarkably good set of rules deciding what the government could and could not do to first-class citizens, and that's what we respect them for.
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Or so you were told, anyway. Welcome to reality, third-class citizen.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
Try reading Zinn's A People's History of the United States [amazon.com]. It will disillusion you of the comic book U.S. History taught in U.S. school where the founding fathers are all saints and geniuses.
They were mostly self serving and profiteering. Its fitting Andrew Jackson is on the $20 dollar bill because he was infamous for profiteering off the battles he won, mostly by seizing the lands he took and splitting it up between himself and his friends.
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I should point out native americans are still largely unemployed, stuck in reservations on land white American's didn't want. One of their few rays of hope being the ubiquitous Indian Casino where they are exacting their revenge. Still they are second class citizens.
Blacks were still being massively discriminated against until the Civil Rights act which was around 180 years later. They are still second class citizens.
The poor, they are still second class citizens.
Women are the one group doing pretty well
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Yep, those damn plutocrats sure did their best that the rest of us would never have a leg up. /sarcasm
I suggest that you take some time to read the Federalist Papers. I think you'll discover things
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You do realize those rights at that point in time applied only to white male land owners, right?
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course most of them would have tolerated this as long as it was being used against loyalists or any of the sub-human types, read up on how the colonists who were not in favour of revolution were treated. Just like now, what they wouldn't tolerate was this being used on them.
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*Sigh* Yes the founding fathers were perfect beings being created with infinite wisdom, absolute faith, the ability to see the future and cover every situation in the future of mankind with a terse text.
Or maybe not. But it is easier to simply worship the above idea, right?
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Snowden didn't plan to stay in Russia, he was just passing through (on his way to Ecuador I think) when his passport was revoked. Then he was stuck in Russia.
Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The single greatest evil that mankind ever unleashed upon the world was a corrupt government.
We need more people like Snowden. And when they pop up, we should step up and defend them.
(Of course, all *I* am brave enough to do is post an AC comment on a geek forum....but....maybe somebody else will be brave enough to do what needs to be done).
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
To agents in the NSA: It doesn't matter if 999 of 1000 of you are honest. All it takes is one G. Gordon Liddy type who ignores requirements for warrants to listen in on political opponents, and the whole thing is worthless. Possibly that is also the real intent, easy obfuscation of ultimate corruption.
Known historical democracies collapse when they "temporarily" give emergency powers to someone. Greece, Rome, Germany 80 years ago.
And you're participating in this modern panopticon as a rube while someone, maybe next to you, spies for a party or powerful faction.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
To agents in the NSA: It doesn't matter if 999 of 1000 of you are honest.
If they were honest, they wouldn't be collecting everyone's data to begin with. That in itself is a violation of people's liberties.
Re:Agreed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that the response you get from Americans is "well, fuck it, as long as it's someone else's rights, who cares?".
Which more or less forces the rest of the world to decide that the rights of Americans isn't their damned problem. Because the rest of the world doesn't see their rights as secondary to those of Americans.
Re:Agreed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that the response you get from Americans is "well, fuck it, as long as it's someone else's rights, who cares?".
Actually, the NSA is actively violating the constitutional rights of every single American by ordering all the companies we do business with to hand over all their records on us. It matters because when the rule of law, especially our fundamental rights, are not respected by those with the highest responsibility to uphold them, then the rule of law breaks down and then we get the rule of the strongest factions and the elimination of freedom for all. We might already be there, but I hope it is not too late to restore the rule of law without a new civil war or a new revolution.
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Probably the most important comment on this story...where are my damn mod points...
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They have to collect it all to know who to target with software or hardware to get around individual use of encryption.
Collecting all data finds out why a person is interesting in encryption. Then seek the plain text thanks to tame telcos, OS, standards.
You read up on or show an interest in TOR, your ip is noted for some further consideration. How do they know you loo
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It takes one agent who gets paid in gold and 999 who get paid in security and convenience. The exact same as with police or Catholic Church's abuse scandal. That's the way systematic corruption works: one bad apple didn't make the tree rotten, the tree was always rotten and the bad apple
What made them decide to do this now? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand very well why the UN might not have done this earlier - the US government would want to quash any positive PR for a man they consider to be a traitor, and I'm sure they can exert enough force on the UN to ensure this happens. I would not be at all surprised if that was why this report hadn't come out until now.
The question is, though, what made them decide to release it?
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Probably because any righteous indignation the U.S. can raise now would be like a homeless man with a sharting problem ranting about bad hygiene.
The United States Voted For That Declaration (Score:5, Informative)
"n 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly by a vote of 48 in favor, none against"
This was the West announcing their idea of human rights.
(see Wikipedia)
Re:The United States Voted For That Declaration (Score:5, Insightful)
The founders of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had, at the time, just faced down a global fascist hegemony, which made those rights seem just and proper and self-evident for great peace and wellbeing.
Now those founding states are becoming a global fascists hegemony ... they're not so keen on them.
Quelle suprise! :)
Likely Violated Human Rights? (Score:2)
Meanwhile in Russia... (Score:2, Offtopic)
It looks like Ivan just violated the human rights of about 300 people by blowing up their airliner.
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
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Hey, look there.... and puff, like that... he was gone.
as Kissinger once said (Score:2)
Well, to be fair, Kissinger inside a Doonesbury strip said, "I'm sick and tired of people asking about human rights. What do you want: human rights or world peace?"
harrumph
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Whoosh. Do you know what Doonesbury is?
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And Doonesbury is a "who."
Oh, so now not only corporations but also comic strips are people?
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Whether he was murdered or committed suicide, a dead communist is no loss.
Hypocrites (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's take a look at the membership of the UN Human Rights Commission-
China
Kuwait
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Venezuela
Clearly these folks are qualified to tell other people about how important civil rights are.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Informative)
You're not listing the entire group membership
And you're mixing the human rights commission with the human rights council and cherrypicking from the bottom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
Just because some nations with less than stellar reputations themselves are on the council and/or commission does not automatically invalidate their mission or what the UN commission / council have to say.
I understand the worry of "putting the fox in charge of the hen house" but one could put it another way: Even these countries see we (the US) is being hypocritical and violating human rights.
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The fact that those countries were allowed into any human rights group shows what a worthless joke the UN has become.
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You forgot US (supporting torture, executions etc.).
But this kind of excessive black/white thinking can be an indication of a mental disorder. Not in your case though, it seems you are simply incapable of formulating the question (nor the answer to it): what is the best existing global organization to make such a declaration?
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Not everyone can be a genius like you. Sorry.
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Ah you are in the group S5: "UN is a socialistic terror organization supporting those dirty Arab scum". Less common compared with group B3: "UN is a socialistic terror organization under the control of ZOG".
Personally I'm in group F8: "UN is a dynamically balanced structure, weak, old world nostalgic and generally bad. But it is still better than the alternative".
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These countries are only criticizing the US because the US has criticized their human rights records. It has nothing to do with their concern for human rights.
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The first 10 or so are noble, a rough analog of US rights. After that, it starts turning into this bizarre amalgam of a socialist wish list and rules deliberately violating the first 10 fir the purpose of preserving the status quo of those in power.
This item 12 is itself a great example, stating a right not to have one's reputation harmed. Intention: censorship of things which are true but which embarrass politicians, a concept foreign in a land with free speech.
Before downmodding me in quasi-censorship o
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Article 12:
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
it says we are free from attacks to our reputation not that we are free from having our reputation harmed by ourselves and then reported by someone else. harming ones own reputation and then having someone else report on what the individual has done is not an a
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Thank you for quoting the text. I've never seen this before.
it says we are free from attacks to our reputation not that we are free from having our reputation harmed by ourselves and then reported by someone else.
If it said that then there might be more agreement. But that isn't what the words you quoted say. It has no such caveat. The only caveat at all is the word "arbitrary" which is a legislative weasel word. If it said "libelous" or "untrue" or something to that effect then it would not be debatable. It simply looks like it is poorly written, even if it is intended to mean what you say it is.
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Well, that's one interpretation.
But if do something horrible and hide the evidence then my reputation is unharmed, but those muckrakers carrying on about "truth" and "evidence" are trying to harm my reputation - a clear attack if I ever saw one. Legitimate perhaps, but still an attack. It would have been easy enough to distinguish the two:
Article 12 (Posi-Earth edition)
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to *libelous* attacks upon his
Re:The U.N. Finds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the typical asshole American response.
The US helped form the UN. The US alternates between using the UN to further own ends, and decrying the UN if people refuse to blindly follow what the US wants.
Face it, the US has actively become the enemies of human rights and liberties over the last bunch of years.
The fact that you're a bunch of whiny, self-entitled cock-suckers who think you run the world is your problem.
The UN is a framework for countries to try to resolve issues diplomatically. Yes, it can be ineffective as blocs of countries drag their heels on stuff. But it's all we've got.
The US talks about international justice, but refuses to be a signatory to the ICC -- so that they can continue to commit war crimes and answer to nobody.
Fuck America. Fuck you.
You've become a banana republic with delusions of being the champions of rights and freedoms.
What a deluded bunch of assholes.
Re: The U.N. Finds... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Read your history, they intentionally bled their allies out of all cash to become economic super power after the war and were pissed off they even have to join in 1942 because of the damn public opinion. Even so they delayed any serious military action until 1944, when it was basically over and they just came in the prevent Russia from taking over too much of Europe and protect their own interest and get a free piece of Germany. Not such a good guys the way I see it.
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Bullshit. Good or bad is just a point of view. Nazis thought they were the divine force of good doing their historic duty to build civilizations and conquering the untermenchen that was created to serve as slave labor.
Both before, during and after the US (as well as all other states) did things most would now consider good and other things people now would consider outright evil.
Re: The U.N. Finds... (Score:2)
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the US has actively become the enemies of human rights and liberties over the last bunch of years.
Every government is the enemy of human rights and liberties.
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bullshit. big money / big corp is, but in the US's case, that's the same. And they're infecting the EU and its members as well now.
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Every government is the enemy of human rights and liberties.
Even if that were true there are no alternatives.
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Except you don't run your country. He's angry at the people who do and I can't say that I blame him too much.
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Fuck you and your excuses. It's not us, it's them. Fuck you. Do something about it. It is done in your name so either accept the blame or make a change.
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U.N., what a joke...
In the future they'll just turn it into low rent housing anyway.
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Re:Gimme a f 'ing break (Score:5, Informative)
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It's not that they're not doing it - it's that they haven't been caught. Or at least, not caught on the same scale.
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And at the same time, the NSA is the most useless organisation when it comes to fight domestic terrorism, as the only fact related to domestic terrorism they ever unco
Re:Big Deal (Score:4)
As opposed to the US government, which is a model of competency and the ability to get something done?
Sorry, but if you have a better system for doing stuff, we're all ears.
If not ... well, then you have nothing of value to add here.
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Sorry, but if you have a better system for doing stuff, we're all ears.
Well, at the very least the UN should switch to a bicameral structure with one chambers membership being more closely aligned with actual country power. Say a combination of land mass, population and wealth for a reasonable proxy.
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Your options are ... try to work together in a reasoned diplomatic process, or say fuck it and simply got to war.
Since the UN is the only mechanism for the former, what are your options?
Complaining that they're ineffective just points out problems which exist in all such bodies -- not everybody agrees with everybody else.
So, if you have a solution to the UN, you'll have a solution to all broken democracies.
But if you think you're doing any better, you're sadly mistaken. The UN is no more, or no less broken
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No, because if your citizenry decide it's OK to attack another country (*cough* Iraq in 2003 *cough*), your citizenry won't hold you accountable.
The UN is intended to have you accountable to other countries.
And, when the US violates the rights of everyone on the planet, do we see the US citizenry holding their government to task? Clearly, the answer is no.
The problem is
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