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by wfunction 3480 days ago
>Are you saying US citizens have zero constitutional rights the second they step out of the US?

This gets kind of close to word-play territory (no pun intended).

IMHO you still have your rights, but when you're outside the country, you can't expect the government to automagically recognize you as a citizen among the foreigners who don't have the same rights as you, and hence may not be able to exercise them. So that means you first have to convince them that you have the rights you claim before you can expect your rights to be recognized.

This would work just fine in a world where authorities were keen to recognize your identity before inspecting your belongings, so I'm saying the fact that they refuse to do that is the real abuse/violation here. So that's what you really have to argue against. Otherwise, if you assume that is OK, the rest of the logic doesn't really seem faulty to me.
2 comments
naasking 3480 days ago
> IMHO you still have your rights, but when you're outside the country, you can't expect the government to automagically recognize you as a citizen among the foreigners who don't have the same rights as you, and hence may not be able to exercise them.

Apparently even that is not true, because the US can actually assist foreign governments in detaining and torturing their own citizens [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13145227

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ItendToDisagree 3480 days ago
So... Having a valid US passport isn't enough proof of citizenship?

What do you suggest instead?

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wfunction 3480 days ago
> So... Having a valid US passport isn't enough proof of citizenship? What do you suggest instead?

No. It doesn't seem like you made any effort to understand what I'm saying. What I was saying did not reduce to something this trivial.

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