The Biden administration has taken to frequently asserting its intention to return — versus the Trump administration’s departure therefrom — to something called a “rules-based international order.”

What is this supposed “order?” What obligations does it impose, and upon whom? Which governments meet those obligations. Which don’t?

Google returns about 197,000 results on the phrase “rules-based international order.” The top result leads to a paper from the United Nations Association of Australia, which defines it as “a shared commitment by all countries to conduct their activities in accordance with agreed rules that evolve over time, such as international law, regional security arrangements, trade agreements, immigration protocols, and cultural arrangements.”

The US government, on the other hand, usually invokes the term when making unilateral demands of, or militarily intervening against, other governments. Washington defines it as “the US makes the rules; the rest of the world must do as it is ordered.”

On the rare occasion that it takes an even slightly broader view, that view — as voiced by an anonymous US State Department official in a recent press briefing — is that a handful of governments (in this case the G7 group) “has a global perspective, which is not true of every country in the world.” The (US-dominated) G7 makes the rules; the rest of the world must do as it is ordered.

A major problem with the “rules” in question, in addition to the US government wanting to enforce them pursuant to its own agenda while violating them whenever it pleases, is that the US government can’t be trusted to follow the rules even when it makes, and explicitly agrees to, them. Two recent examples:

The Trump administration, in violation of US and international law (“the rules”), began shirking its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, aka “the Iran nuclear deal,” in 2018. Instead of bringing the US back into compliance as promised during the 2020 presidential campaign, the Biden administration continues to attempt to negotiate new conditions for holding up its end of a binding international deal.

After two decades of war, the Trump administration negotiated an Afghanistan peace deal with the Taliban, under which US troops were required to exit the country by May 1 of this year. The Biden administration hemmed, hawed, and reneged on that obligation, pushing the withdrawal back by more than three months.

Absent a powerful referee  (the US regime loves to style itself the world’s “only remaining superpower,” immune to pressure from lesser regimes or even the United Nations), the only possible basis for a “rules-based international order” is trust. And the US regime continually proves itself untrustworthy.

If the Biden administration really wants a “rules-based international order,” the first step is to start following the rules.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“The Biden administration,” CNN reports, “is considering using outside firms to track extremist chatter by Americans online.”

Federal law enforcement agencies are legally and constitutionally  forbidden to monitor the private activities of citizens without first getting warrants based on probable cause to believe those citizens have committed, or are committing, crimes. The feds can browse public social media posts and so forth, but secretly trawling private groups and hacking encrypted chats is off-limits.

Private companies and nonprofit civic organizations, not being government entities, don’t need warrants or probable cause to access those private discussion areas.  The administration’s bright idea is that through partnership with these non-government entities, they can get around legal and constitutional barriers:  “WE didn’t collect the information. THEY collected the information, then gave it to us.”

There are several flies in that ointment. Here’s a big one:

It’s entirely understandable that — to use an entirely hypothetical example — someone with the Southern Poverty Law Center might impersonate a fictional white supremacist to get into a private Ku Klux Klan chat room and see what those people are up to.

But the US Department of Justice says it’s illegal  (under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) to evade terms of service with false identities.

A government partnership with an organization that gathers information in that way is no different than the government partnering with a burglar to find out what you have in your house, without the bother of convincing a judge there’s probable cause to issue a search warrant. It is, quite simply, criminal conspiracy.

As with so many political and social issues arising in the Internet age, we’re coming up against a big question that urgently needs answering:

At what point does “working with” government amount to “being part of” government?

Much of the “private” tech sector makes big money on government contracts. NBC News reports, based on  a 2020 Tech Inquiry expose,  that Microsoft enjoys thousands of subcontracts with the US Department of Defense and federal law enforcement. Amazon has more than 350 such subcontracts with agencies like ICE and the FBI. Google, more than 250.

What about the “nonprofit” sector? According to the National Council of NonProfits, 31.8% of nonprofit revenues are tied to government grants and contracts.

When  these entities do things FOR government, they should be held to the same standards and limits AS government. And those standards and limits should put our freedom and privacy first.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “How the Biden Administration Could Step Up Warrantless Spying on Americans by Using Private Firms,” by Ekaterina Blinova, Sputnik News (Russian state media), 05/09/21