Uh-oh... be careful...
This is an increasingly touchy subject ("touch" being both a figurative and an operative word here...).
There are laws on the books (definitively in the US, and presumably in other countries as well) that specifically prohibit not only contact with
ETI/EBEs, but even regarding the reporting of sightings and such.
You may want to review the
"Open Contact Law", sometimes called the
"Extraterrestrial Contact Law", which was established by NASA during Apollo as a way to prevent
contamination of Earth by any ET pathogens brought back from space/moon/celestial bodies, etc. The law was reportedly rescinded in the early '90s,
but a sneaky provision left active allows it to be "reinstated" at any time and without notice (MIB-enforced?).
ATS has several threads about this already, such as
ET Contact Act of 2005?. You may
want to do a search and check it out...
You may also want to check out a summary on cultural impacts (including political/legal ones) of sightings/contacts with extraterrestrials
here.
There has been much written about this topic as of late, especially in light of the aggressive and increasingly successful Earth-like planet hunting
being done by the Kepler team and other astrobiologists around the world.
Some alarmists out there are claiming that there are laws and regulations, many of them subjective and purposely written to allow a wide latitude of
interpretation, that prohibit even the REPORTING of a sighting to anyone other than the gubmint first -presumably to give them an opportunity to
silence you if they wish.
with the recent rash of snooping and covert actions against innocent, unknowing citizens coming to light it would not surprise me if some of these
fears or speculations have some bearing in fact.
So... Rights? Ha. You have no rights... Well you have the right to remain silent. Um, well - if they haul you off somewhere for a little friendly
chat, you may not have
that right either.