AFAIK the US Constitution is just a contract put forth by the US citizens limiting the power of the US Govt. By agreeing to obey the constitution, you become a US citizen and vice-versa. Although the principles apply universally, they have a legal basis to be enforced (by the US judiciary) only in the US.
Technically, it was a contract put forth by some citizens of the several states in confederation, to create a government with enumerated powers. That is, it both enabled and limited at the same time.
In a strictly technical sense, the US Army is prohibited from disarming citizens of Iraq in their own country, for instance. But they might just do it anyway. Because said foreigners would not be able to petition for relief anywhere else but in a US federal courts, and there are currently several barriers to them initiating an action there, which largely do not exist for citizens in the US, that foreigner is usually unable to exercise those rights using strictly peaceful means.
In short, it's far easier to form your own militia and kill any agents of the US that you find in your own country. That seems like bad policy all the way around. It would be much better if the US just obeyed its own laws anywhere it goes in the world. It might even be prudent to set up a 12th federal circuit, with at least one district in each country with which the US has an extradition treaty, to support cases with jurisdiction established by Article III, Section 2, Paragraph 1: "and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects." Such courts would be authorized by the Constitution, but as far as I am aware, none exist.
If there were a foreign circuit, it is likely that Guantanamo Bay detainees could file Habeas Corpus motions in it. Foreign banks could fight to restore their privacy safeguards while still serving US customers. Private military contractors might face civil suits from the families of people randomly gunned down in the streets of their own cities. If the US had to obey its own laws everywhere around the world, it would certainly devolve into pure chaos~
Interestingly enough, we did (kind of) try this once. There used to be a United States Court for China in the first half of the 1900s. This court exercised extraterritorial jurisdiction over U.S. citizens living in China. Appeals were heard in the 9th Circuit.
What I find most intriguing (or appalling) is that a District Court judge in the Western District of Washington (State) held in 1942 that a U.S. citizen who was tried, convicted, and sentenced in the U.S. Court for China was not entitled to Constitutional rights. Judge Black wrote in Casement v. Squier[0] that Petitioner Leroy Lomax, then-incarcerated on McNeil Island was "mistaken in his contention that the Constitution of the United States guaranteed him a trial thousands of miles beyond the boundaries of the United States." Lomax said that his confinement was unconstitutional because he had been denied a trial by jury (one of Americans, versus the bench trial he received).
Judge Black quoted the U.S. Supreme Court decision In re Ross[1], where Justice Field wrote "[t]he Constitution can have no operation in another country." Thus, the Petitioner in Casement was denied habeus corpus.
I've not studied law, so I'd like to hope that this was "clarified" or overturned, though I don't hold much hope.
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.
By my plain, non-lawyer reading of the law, Judge Black was either misinformed or lying about the law. It hardly matters if you are beyond the boundaries of the US, if the US comes to you to claim jurisdiction over you.
It certainly is appalling. The Constitution must have operation over agents of the federation wherever they may go, even if not over citizens or other people, otherwise you end up with malicious workarounds like extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo Bay prison.
And while Oliver Twist is non legal canon, when the law is an ass, we should feel free to say so. The argument from In re Ross seemed very disingenuous, in that it claimed that a court established in a foreign country using the Constitution as the basis for its jurisdiction was then no longer bound by it thereafter. It is obvious to me, as a layman, that both Black and Field were seeking expedience rather than justice. I imagine that anyone seeking to overturn the precedent set by the Field opinion could simply petition as an expatriate filing income taxes, and claim it as sole argument against the 16th Amendment having operation in another country.
Wouldn't it be lovely if we considered citizens of other countries to be (sorry to abuse the term) "first class citizens" w.r.t. what rules we apply to them / how we govern or limit ourselves when surveilling them?
We could hold ourselves to a higher standard, but we take the (without a doubt efficacious, but) low road.
Possibly impractical nowadays from a national security standpoint in the "you can't get there from here" sense, but lovely nonetheless.
If we did that, they would also be governed by things like federal drug law and tax law. It does not seem desirable to apply the same rules both to citizens and non-citizens.
Rights are different from laws. There is no 'right to be taxed', but there are rights to privacy. Alleging that basic rights do exist but should only apply to human beings who live inside the borders of your own country is just a fundamentally bigoted position.
It's essentially admitting that certain lines should not be crossed in allowing people a decent and dignified existence, but then proclaiming only 5% of the world deserves that dignity due solely to the accident of where they're born. You might as well be separating the world into 'people who matter' and 'people who don't', which, as we've learned through history both ancient and recent, provides a great basis for activities like torture and genocide. Not exactly what you'd hope for from an enlightened democracy.
