>Non-Americans don't have the same rights as Americans.
It is precisely this violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is causing so much calamity in the world today, alas. Americans should really, really not accept this state of affairs - either American lives are human lives, and are thus as valuable as any other human life, or they aren't - and therefore international law need not apply to Americans in other aspects of life, either.
The efforts to which an American citizen will proclaim their exceptionalism over the rest of the world and duplicity in applying that exceptionalism is a major cause of the diminished trust that the world feels for the USA, today.
> It is precisely this violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Pretty much all countries distinguish citizens from non-citizens. This isn't an American thing. And you're committing a category error, namely that rights Americans have aren't a superset of any internationally agreed rights. They are.
Bah, this is just another example of how Americans' can be convinced to buy their own doom by packaging it as exceptionalism instead.
Human rights supersede citizenship, which is as it should be - especially for those human beings who want to exercise their rights while not being citizens of any state, whether by choice or by war, etc.
Non-citizens are humans too, and therefore have the same rights citizens do.
Sure, no. The cop with a gun pointed at you shouts your rights at you; rights which the government wrote down.
In all seriousness though, I've no idea what this means in any practical sense. I don't know what being a subject of a government is, not how it compares to being a sovereign.
But is this is not missing the point? Just as with any country, if the US didn't agree them, then they aren't agreed. Thus they aren't an example of the US differentiating between its citizens and its non-citizens on its agreed human rights.
I agree with the counter-conclusion you propose, which is that these international laws need not apply to Americans either. (Although I agree with the notion, in a reply, that they aren't 'real' or binding law anyway.)
It's still the case that spy agencies will have more of a difficult time in court and in public perception dealing with the ramifications of spying on citizens. Nonetheless, I don't think this means very much, and if the Federal government would like to, they could take this 'right' away, lie about not violating it, or violate it and ignore the fact that it's happening.
And this isn't about American citizens proclaiming exceptionalism. I suggested no such exceptionalism, and I highly doubt there are many citizens who agree with this any more. I would guess that somewhere near a majority of Americans prefer that we don't waste money spying on anyone. You can put this on the citizens if you like, but I view it similarly to hearing some Americans complain about "the Chinese" rather than "the Chinese government." It doesn't reflect what I believe reality is, that most normal people are not in support of these policies, and normal citizens from 'foreign adversary' nations are not our enemies, and we should not talk about them that way. (Edit: A caveat on this, the US is a democracy so I can see it being argued that the citizens are complicit in their government's behavior. Briefly stated, I disagree, but that's a really long argument and tangent I don't want to go down this morning.)
Here's a poll touching the subject from 2021 (no idea about the veracity, just a result I found Googling "poll americans who support spying"):
> In particular, 46% of Americans say they oppose the U.S. government responding to threats against the nation by reading emails sent between people outside of the U.S. without a warrant, as permitted under law for purposes of foreign intelligence collection. That’s compared to just 27% who are in favor. In an AP-NORC poll conducted one decade ago, more favored than opposed the practice, 47% to 30%.
It is precisely this violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that is causing so much calamity in the world today, alas. Americans should really, really not accept this state of affairs - either American lives are human lives, and are thus as valuable as any other human life, or they aren't - and therefore international law need not apply to Americans in other aspects of life, either.
The efforts to which an American citizen will proclaim their exceptionalism over the rest of the world and duplicity in applying that exceptionalism is a major cause of the diminished trust that the world feels for the USA, today.