🚀 go-pugleaf

Victoria Lee <hax...@scican.net> wrote:

>Spamming, mailbombing (via the Internet), harassment, pyramid schemes,
>and chain letters are illegal in the U.S.  Most, if not all, break
>Federal laws.  If they originate outside of the U.S. does that suddenly
>make them legal and the one sending them not liable or is it just
>extremely inconvenient to pursue the matter?  Ian since you seem to be
>such an expert on international law and its applications within each
>country perhaps you could enlighten us?
>
>A comparison that might help: If an _______ (fill in the blank with
>country) citizen sent a mail bomb to another country and it exploded and
>killed someone do you actually think that no crime would have been
>committed because the bomb originated and was sent in another country
>and the country of origin did not have laws specifically prohibiting the
>sending of mail bombs? 
>
>I suspect that rather than assuming you're a 100% safe from U.S.
>jurisdiction you might want to check extradition treaties of your
>country to make sure, before you break American laws via the Internet. 
>While spamming is not likely to get much federal attention bilking
>hundreds or thousands of U.S. citizens out of large sums of money might
>be another matter.

Most countries assume that their laws only apply in their territory.
The USA does not seem to agree with this idea, and actually allows for
the kidnapping of people from other countries to stand trial in the
US. It can of course only get away with this when the target is in a
poor third world country that can't defend itself. If I (for example)
were to send a mail bomb from the UK to the USA, then the USA might
apply for my extradition, this would not be granted, on the grounds
that, having never stepped foot on american soil, I could not possibly
have committed an offence there. I would however, be liable for trial
here. If I did the same in some tiny country no-one really cared
about, the US, if they thought I was important enough, might send a
bunch of big guys to get me. That isn't law though, its just what you
can do when you are bigger than everyone else.


Gareth Jones