Comment by spikels
12 years ago
Unfortunately we don't live in the world you imagine but I would join you in trying to improve the world we actually live in. I don't see how a trade and travel embargo could possibly help - it would almost certainly make things worse! Clearly there is no actual right to privacy under international law and rules vary greatly by country and are often weak in practice[1]. This is want we need to change either through treaties, constitutions or laws. I don't know where you live but in the US it would probably take a constitional amendment - a very difficult procedure - or a very broad decision by the Supreme Court - unlikely.
The thing about isolating the USA was not meant as a real solution, it was just to illustrate my feelings. See also this comment [1] of mine for a clarification.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) [1] contains privacy right in article 12 [3]. The UDHR is not legally binding but the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) [4] is and contains the privacy rights, too. The USA signed and ratified the ICCPR. Maybe someone should just sue all the spying nations.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil...
What's interesting with these declarations (and I'm surprised they don't even get a mention in the media) is that they specifically say that these rights cannot be denied based on "national or social origin". So it's basically illegal for the US to invade the privacy of foreign citizens according to the terms of those covenants. The US Constitution is probably in direct violation of it as far as I can tell since it specifically only applies to Americans.