[thechat] US criticised over Muslim checks

[Hugh Blair]

> -----Original Message-----
> On Behalf Of Ken Kogler
>
> > This is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about circumstances
> > where an event takes place in country X, with the main agent being a
> > citizen of country X.  This event is legal in country X, but illegal
> in the
> > US. When the agent enters the US, s/he is arrested.
>
> Dimitri Sklyarov and his e-book decryption software come to mind. He
> wrote the software in Russia for his Russian company, and was arrested
> when when he visited Las vegas for a conference. Stupid DMCA.
>
> LOTS more here: http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/

It was a stupid reaction because of the issue. But...

You're not making a valid comparison using the parameters we were
discussing. As much as you and I might not like it, the Dimitri
case was valid. What he did _in his own country_ wasn't illegal
there, but was here. If his product (words/program) stayed only
in his country, he wouldn't have had any legal problem in the US.
But his words/program made it to the US, where it could be
considered illegal. In one view, the 'crime' was committed here
by releasing the idea/code/program here.

Let's take this example which more closely fits the somewhat
generic issue first raised.

A 15-year-old son "Will" takes his father's car for a joy ride
in his home country of FooBar. In FooBar that is a crime, grand
theft. The son disappears and turns up in the US with his
grandmother. The FooBar authorities notify the US authorities
that they want Will returned for prosecution. Here in the US
Will's action might be considered a petty crime at worst, and
probably ignored with Will being returned to his father for
his personal punishment, if any.

But, although the US doesn't consider this a 'high' crime,
the US has a precipice agreement with FooBar to return
citizens of their country that are wanted for prosecution.
What probably would happen is that the US authorities would
take custody of Will (and probably immediately release him
into grandmother's custody [unless she helped him 'escape'])
and start extradition proceedings. Final analysis, he
probably would be returned to FooBar.

IANAL, but this is how I understand our legal system. All
of this discussion is way past the original topic and is
truly getting into areas that I don't feel competent to
discuss, but my limited legal knowledge prompted me to
disagree with the original somewhat generic "The US is
horrible and will do these horrible things" statement.

Enough of this. Carry on. Return to your normal programming.

Hugh