• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

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

Kal'Stang

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
42,744
Reaction score
22,569
Location
Bonners Ferry ID USA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Independent
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.
 
I think it should apply to anyone legally in the US, we should give tourists and visitors protections under the Constitution.
 
Does French law apply to US citizens? How about Zimbabwean?
 
a351 said:
Does French law apply to US citizens? How about Zimbabwean?
Click to expand...

If a US citizen is in France or Zimbabwe those laws apply, same thing holds true for them while they are in the US.
 
digsbe said:
I think it should apply to anyone legally in the US, we should give tourists and visitors protections under the Constitution.
Click to expand...

Yea, but that almost goes without saying...
 
digsbe said:
If a US citizen is in France or Zimbabwe those laws apply, same thing holds true for them while they are in the US.
Click to expand...
Right. Which pretty much answers the question in the OP.
 
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.
 
digsbe said:
I think it should apply to anyone legally in the US, we should give tourists and visitors protections under the Constitution.
Click to expand...

Non-resident aliens legally present in the U.S., e.g. French tourists with the required documents, enjoy most of those protections while here. Neither the Bill of Rights nor anything else in the Constitution applies to aliens outside U.S. territory.
 
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.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's either embarrassing or reprehensible, and you are right that it does not violate any applicable laws. A few of the bastards--Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, especially-- should be damned glad they were NOT tried, because they clearly are guilty of war crimes that are punishable by death. He should have been tried before a military tribunal a dozen years ago, and after he'd been convicted, had his grimy neck stretched on a gallows.
 
The military show trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is kind of similar to post WWII show trials. Ridiculous confessions of all sorts of impossible stuff, limited access to lawyers, witness testimony obtained under torture or bribery, confession extracted under torture, keeping evidence (seized computers) behind from the public and allowing limited viewing over video with time delay to allow interruption if inconvenient stuff surfaces.

It shows the US government is one of the most evil two faced Orwellian states on the planet.
 
Last edited:

The United States has not yet tried Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And the United States has not authorized the torture of either him or anyone else. Your assertions about the Nurmberg trials are at least good for a laugh. Even the anti-American propaganda of Oliver Stone or Michael Moore is closer to the truth.
 

Natan, I often agree with your posts, but this is ridiculous.
 
reinoe said:
Natan, I often agree with your posts, but this is ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Don't be surprised he's an unapologetic holocaust 'minimizer' who lists his stated location as ZOG 'the Zionist Occupied Government'.
 
It is a feature of nationalism (just not socialist in this case I suppose) to always be willing to cover up for the most vicious and depraved crimes of their nation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...h_Mohammed#The_Trial_in_a_Military_Commission

Capture and torture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#Capture_and_interrogation

His nonsensical and even non exhaustive list of "confessions" that seem like from medieval witch trials:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#List_of_confessions

The torture of Nuremberg suspects is even on photographs, but delicate souls here are in denial about that and have the guts of accusing others of "denial".
 

It is always dissapointing that people argue like that. Sure a lot of people and groups want to harm the USA for a variety of reasons. One method is propaganda like that, which you are demonstrating. Whether or not torture was applied in a limited number of cases can be discussed. What is very clear is that the interrogation methods that were allowed do not represent real torture and that naming them so is mischievous or just uninformed.
But even in the case of Khalid I tend to doubt that torture is the appropriate word, when I think of documentation of Assad's methods of treating his opposition. Using the same word for both behaviors makes the word meaningless.
 
joG said:
Whether or not torture was applied in a limited number of cases can be discussed.
Click to expand...
No it cannot. It happened. Do you deny it?

joG said:
What is very clear is that the interrogation methods that were allowed do not represent real torture
Click to expand...
That's why the video tapes of his interrogation were destroyed.

joG said:
But even in the case of Khalid I tend to doubt that torture is the appropriate word, when I think of documentation of Assad's methods of treating his opposition. Using the same word for both behaviors makes the word meaningless.
Click to expand...
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as they say.
 
Natan said:
No it cannot. It happened. Do you deny it?


That's why the video tapes of his interrogation were destroyed.


Denial is not just a river in Egypt, as they say.
Click to expand...

You obviously have not read the papers and done a comparative analysis of torture. You should.
 
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...

United States Constitution.
 
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...

Why should somebody outside of the US have anything to do with the bill of rights of the United States of America? The bill I think is a guide to live in the US. Now while I think the US government should support the rights in that bill in the way it holds itself in the world and with the people it interacts with, but that is about it IMHO.
 
Why would America's Bill of Rights apply to anyone not living in America? That makes no sense. I hate to break it to Americans, but not everyone in the world wants to be American, have an American system of government or law.
 
LadyMoonlight said:
Why would America's Bill of Rights apply to anyone not living in America?
Click to expand...
I think the intent of the OP matters. Legally speaking, I believe it doesn't apply, however if one does not want to appear an utter hypocrite on the world stage with regards to respect for human rights, due process and rejection of torture, it morally should apply (or perhaps in a more limited form, to be discussed).
 
You have to wonder if ISIS or a similar group continues to be successful at infiltrating other nations and then exploiting the freedoms and rights those nations have, how long will it take for some nations to change their view and pronounce that citizens of those nations are the ones covered by the law and NOT non- citizens simply who are there?
 
There is a difference in for example not acknowledging the full extent of free speech (calls for jihad not accepted) and not acknowledging basic human rights and due process, fair trial and no torture please.
 
Natan said:
Capture and torture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#Capture_and_interrogation
Click to expand...

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!

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. It should have, maybe--but it never did.

I have written at length and in detail about all this dozens of times on other sites like this. Leftists, apparently following Goebbels' idea that a lie repeated often enough and not challenged, will in time be accepted as fact, keep trotting it out. It costs them only a minute or two to make the slander, but rebutting it in detail takes hours of wading through difficul legal documents and then trying to explain, in layman's terms, what they say. I have done that, but I don't have the time or the inclination to do it again here.

The United States never authorized the use of any interrogation technique that constitutes torture under Section 2340 of the U.S. Code, or any other applicable U.S. laws. All those techniques, including the waterboarding technique, were analyzed by John Yoo and Jay Bybee in detailed legal memos written when they were in the Justice Department's prestigious Office of Legal Counsel. I have read those memos, which are as good as legal research gets, and they conclude that all the enhanced interrogation techniques were well within what our laws allow. To hell with Muslim jihadists, the sooner the better, and may their fifth columnists join them there.

As to the specific topic of this thread, nothing in the Constitution applied to any of the Muslim jihadist sons of whores captured by the United States. Nothing, that is, until the Supreme Court decided Boumediene v. Bush, in which it took it upon itself to declare that a federal law governing the jihadists' detention violated the Suspension Clause of the Constitution. That clause describes the limited conditions under which the right to habeas (which no one previously had ever suspected an alien war criminal held abroad had) may be suspended.

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.
 
Last edited:
Offhand I don't know to what extent the Bill of Rights applies to people outside of the United States. Clearly the US BoR doesn't apply to Frenchmen on French soil but I would assume that since US posts overseas are US territory the BoR applies that same as it would within CONUS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…