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Well the US rights system has selective applicability to non citizens. For example in a court of law, non-citizens absolutely have the right to a jury, a fair trial, due process, etc. The bill of rights, for example, does not specify 'citizens' in any way.

In the US natural rights system, the primary offender of rights is the government[1]. For example, you can't argue that facebook is violating your first amendment rights when it 'censors' what you post, because your decision to use facebook was voluntary. So when the government protects your rights[2] (as in the bill of rights), it's mostly protecting your rights from itself.

Privacy isn't specifically enumerated in the US constitution (it's been inferred from natural rights and the 10th amendment - to a lesser degree the 5th and 14th as well).

[1] The 'right to life'/'not be assaulted' seems to be the major exception. Obivously someone that is not the government can threaten your life, including, murderers, corporate negligence, foreign states, etc. The 'right to privacy' does take on aspects of this, too, though - since google can drive its cars down public commons and gather information. Do you have a right to privacy, if you're out in what is generally accepted as a public commons? Does it make a difference if google records you (for example) making an ass of yourself, in a sweeping indiscriminate data collection, or if a friend you know happens to be at the right place and the wrong time to record you making an ass of yourself?

[2] This is a very different concept of rights than what the europeans/UN have, which can include things like, the right to water, the right to food, the right to healthcare, the right to education, the right to internet access, etc. Under the US concept of rights might believe that you have the right to not be stopped from having water, stopped from having food, stopped from having healthcare, stopped from being educated, or stopped from accessing the internet, but, by and large, calling it a right to force others to provide these things rubs americans the wrong way (we call them 'entitlements' not 'rights'.)




How much the government protects us from other individuals is one thing, but I was speaking more to interaction with other governments.




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