[mike777]

 Trinidad, on 2015-May-28, 14:49, said:

Gwnn, I think you are unfair here. Being worried about "Lex Americana" is not the same as being anti-American. Nor does it equate to supporting FIFA.

Kenberg has posted his worries about this "Lex Americana". I doubt you can call him anti-American.

Most posters here want the FIFA cleaned up. But the way this American law works is very shady.

What if the US government passed a law that makes promoting evolution theory a criminal offense? That would mean that half of us could be arrested and extradicted to the USA! After all, we are committing this crime on a server in Las Vegas, NV, USA.

So, I think the worries are genuine. Many people in this world are somehow linked to the USA. That doesn't mean that their actions (good or bad) are suddenly under the jurisdiction of the USA. What if other countries would do the same? Many Americans are -without knowing it- linked to many other countries.

Suppose the Finnish government would pass a similar law and decides that spelling errors should be punished by a fine of €10 per error. You and I don't have a say in that, and neither does Kenberg. Many of those Google servers are physically located in Lapland. (Good internet connections, low costs for cooling the servers.)

With the revenue their law generates, the Fins could afford to bribe all FIFA officials and the stadiums for the next world cup soccer would be in Helsinki, Kuopio, Oulu, Tampere, Turku, Rovaniemi, Lappenranta, and Jyväskylä.

Boy, are we lucky that they are more interested in hockey and ski jumping!

Rik

good ideas but I assume it does not have to be a federal law. I assume we can do this for city or county or state laws
I think you got a money maker here.

For example murders here are for the most part breaking the state law not federal govt.

If the server is in my local town....this may be a very good money making idea.

[Trinidad]

 mike777, on 2015-May-28, 14:53, said:

good ideas but I assume it does not have to be a federal law. I assume we can do this for city or county or state laws
I think you got a money maker here.

Great! That means that the stadiums won't be in Helsinki or Turku, etc., but in Kemi, Kemijärvi, Utsjoki. Soon there will be a rule change in soccer too: Goalies are not merely allowed to use their hands, they can use their andlers too!

Rik

[gwnn]

 Trinidad, on 2015-May-28, 14:49, said:

Gwnn, I think you are unfair here. Being worried about "Lex Americana" is not the same as being anti-American. Nor does it equate to supporting FIFA.

Good, because I have said neither of those things. I like to keep my posts so that people don't misunderstand them but I guess I need to try harder. All I said was that speaking out against "Lex Americana" is a good idea when some unfair or absurd law (like a spelling check law) is applied to some innocent individual but it is a strange thing to point out when completely reasonable laws are applied to high-ranking FIFA officials. Taken in isolation, being worried that the strongest entity in whatever field (in this case, the American justice system) may be abusing its power is a completely reasonable concern, but when this entity is charging an undoubtedly corrupt and immensely rich organization with corruption, this concern is a lot less reasonable and has a tinge of an agenda. My impression of anti-American bias is also based on my interpretation of Robert's posting history, which nobody has to share of course.

[eagles123]

Blatter is just a pure scumbag the whole of FIFA is corrupt and it all sucks. On the plus side Palace come 10th in the Premiership and its cricket season anyway. happy days

[Cyberyeti]

 eagles123, on 2015-May-28, 15:30, said:

Blatter is just a pure scumbag the whole of FIFA is corrupt and it all sucks. On the plus side Palace come 10th in the Premiership and its cricket season anyway. happy days

Well it's happy days till the Aussies arrive, then it might get grim.

I share your view of Blatter. My suspicion is that he was put up to stand for another term by a number of African and Asian officials who feared they were going to jail if the cover up stopped.

[Trinidad]

 gwnn, on 2015-May-28, 15:19, said:

Taken in isolation, being worried that the strongest entity in whatever field (in this case, the American justice system) may be abusing its power is a completely reasonable concern, but when this entity is charging an undoubtedly corrupt and immensely rich organization with corruption, this concern is a lot less reasonable and has a tinge of an agenda.

We want rules to be applied equally, don't we?

I don't doubt for a second that these FIFA guys are the bad guys. But that means that whatever country should prosecute them for whatever bad they did over there (with their feet on the ground). That is a rule for everybody, good guys or bad.

I don't want a law that gives any country the right to prosecute anyone for actions committed outside that country. Period. And I don't want such a law used to prosecute bad guys, because then it can also be used against good guys.

Why is this important? Because countries differ. Whoever is a bad guy in one country can be a good guy in another. If we would allow this, then Russia or Iran can arrest American gay rights activists also if they have never been to Russia or Iran.

Obviously, the spelling error part was a joke, but more seriously. Do we want to allow the Fins the right to arrest Americans (who don't even know where Finland is) for what they write on twitter?

The solution: Find things that these guys did wrong in the USA or find out where they did things wrong and prosecute over there. Not ideal, but better than letting the USA (or any other country for that matter) prosecute whoever everywhere.

Rik

[billw55]

 Trinidad, on 2015-May-28, 14:49, said:

Most posters here want the FIFA cleaned up.

I would prefer to see them replaced entirely.

[gwnn]

 Trinidad, on 2015-May-29, 00:58, said:

We want rules to be applied equally, don't we?

Yes we do.

Quote

I don't doubt for a second that these FIFA guys are the bad guys. But that means that whatever country should prosecute them for whatever bad they did over there (with their feet on the ground). That is a rule for everybody, good guys or bad.

With which I agree. edit: I missed the "with their feet on the ground" initially - so I disagree partially.

Quote

I don't want a law that gives any country the right to prosecute anyone for actions committed outside that country. Period.

With which I also agree.

Quote

And I don't want such a law used to prosecute bad guys, because then it can also be used against good guys.

Thanks, I never thought of that! It's not like I have written

not gwnn said:

Taken in isolation, being worried that the strongest entity in whatever field (in this case, the American justice system) may be abusing its power is a completely reasonable concern (snip)

Quote

Why is this important? Because countries differ. Whoever is a bad guy in one country can be a good guy in another. If we would allow this, then Russia or Iran can arrest American gay rights activists also if they have never been to Russia or Iran.

Obviously, the spelling error part was a joke, but more seriously. Do we want to allow the Fins the right to arrest Americans (who don't even know where Finland is) for what they write on twitter?

No. But if they use a Finnish bank account to defraud people or launder money, yes, we do.

Quote

The solution: Find things that these guys did wrong in the USA or find out where they did things wrong and prosecute over there. Not ideal, but better than letting the USA (or any other country for that matter) prosecute whoever everywhere.

Which is, as far as I am concerned, exactly what is going on right now. They are being prosecuted for frauds they did on American soil or using American bank accounts. What's the problem? Uploading a document (in your examples) to a US or Finnish server is fundamentally different than using the services of American banks for crimes.

There seems to be enough reason for the US Department of Justice to get involved (since the corruption was using American bank accounts) and all that I am saying is that I cannot be bothered if the DoJ oversteps their jurisdiction slightly (where would I draw the line? I don't know) in this particular case. I think if they laundered 10 million dollars with a US account and 1 million with a Swiss account, ideally we'd like US to prosecute them for only the 10M but if they get punished for 11 million instead, I don't care too much. I also consider it weird to be up in arms in this case by other people (i.e., it's not a position that I can sympathize with). If you disagree with this, fine, we can agree to disagree. I hope you will manage to understand what I was saying all along without going back and explaining why obvious overreaches are obvious, with that I agreed all along.

However, all of this depends of course on a bit more facts to know how much of an overreach is being done.

This post has been edited by gwnn: 2015-May-29, 12:00

[ggwhiz]

"The solution: Find things that these guys did wrong in the USA or find out where they did things wrong and prosecute over there. Not ideal, but better than letting the USA (or any other country for that matter) prosecute whoever everywhere."

A political satirist whom I can't recall was asked "If the US is so bad, why don't you leave?"

"I don't want to be subject to their foreign policy."

[barmar]

In addition to the money laundering involving US banks, isn't there also US interest due to bribery being involved in Qatar getting the 2022 World Cup over the US?

Which country's jurisdiction is appropriate for activities like this, which affect all the contending nations?

[Aberlour10]

Only one example out of topic..

A single old US judge is able to ruin a whole country, Argentine in this case. His decission to block Argentines foreign debt restructuring and payments on the bond holders which are agreed with this restructuring may lead to bankcruptcy of this country. He means a several Wall Street sharks who bought old Argentinian bonds for the pennies should first become full payment on these bonds = billions.

To critiise such a circumstances has nothing with anti-american to do

[jjbrr]

lol

[gwnn]

Criticising that case (which I found shocking but would need to know more about all the details to pronounce an informed opinion - I am not sure in which measure to blame the sharks, the judge, or Argentina and I think you also don't, despite your emotionally laden post) would be much more reasonable than this case. That was my point.

[Trinidad]

 barmar, on 2015-May-29, 08:38, said:

In addition to the money laundering involving US banks, isn't there also US interest due to bribery being involved in Qatar getting the 2022 World Cup over the US?

Which country's jurisdiction is appropriate for activities like this, which affect all the contending nations?

Two possibilities:

- The country where the money changed hands, or the illegal agreements were made. (I know that is difficult, but such is life.)

- The seat of FIFA (Switzerland, I presume) which is the country of the institution whose primary interests were harmed and presumably has in their contracts with all their staff a clause that legal battles are supposed to be fought in Switzerland. FIFA could (and should) take civil action against their people when they take bribes. (I know, FIFA is so corrupt, it is not interested.)

So, if these guys were in the USA when they "involved those US banks" then go get 'em. If they were not, then they didn't do anything wrong in the USA, did they? And then the USA doesn't have jurisdiction, no matter how much they would like to have jurisdiction.

Rik

[gwnn]

So if I move to Liberland and I start doing all sorts of cybercrime using American accounts, I am not culpable of anything? Another thing your goofy counterexamples are ignoring is that Switzerland only extradites the suspects if they have committed a crime that is also a crime in Switzerland.

[mike777]

 Aberlour10, on 2015-May-29, 08:50, said:

Only one example out of topic..

A single old US judge is able to ruin a whole country, Argentine in this case. His decission to block Argentines foreign debt restructuring and payments on the bond holders which are agreed with this restructuring may lead to bankcruptcy of this country. He means a several Wall Street sharks who bought old Argentinian bonds for the pennies should first become full payment on these bonds = billions.

To critiise such a circumstances has nothing with anti-american to do

Argentina agreed to USA court and law when they sold the bonds.

In any event USA may NOT be the best country to try and clean up FIFA given it is not our big sport. It might have been better for some soccer loving country to take the lead.

I expect soccer fans in a few months, in most countries, will end up forgiving FIFA and blame the USA as being the bad guy.

[Trinidad]

 mike777, on 2015-May-29, 11:41, said:

I expect soccer fans in a few months, in most countries, will end up forgiving FIFA and blame the USA as being the bad guy.

Well, given that Blatter got re-elected, that probably is true already now.

However, I don't think that Western-Europe is going to forgive FIFA. Part of Western-Europe (like me) may not like the way the USA might be claiming jurisdiction, but I don't think we will see the USA as the bad guy.

Rik

[Trinidad]

 gwnn, on 2015-May-29, 10:25, said:

So if I move to Liberland and I start doing all sorts of cybercrime using American accounts, I am not culpable of anything? Another thing your goofy counterexamples are ignoring is that Switzerland only extradites the suspects if they have committed a crime that is also a crime in Switzerland.

When you are in Liberland you abide by the laws of Liberland. And others have no business interfering with Liberland's sovereignty. That is how we do things. There is one exception and that is for crimes against humanity (or something like that).

If the USA doesn't like the laws of Liberland (or the way Liberland is not enforcing their laws), they can forbid their banks to do business in/from/to/with Liberland. They cannot prosecute you for things that Americans consider crimes when you perpetrated these acts in Liberland. The fact that you used an American account, or an American car, or a Yankees baseball bat does not change that.

The perfect example of how it should be done is happening the other way around right now.

No European country has been prosecuting USA authorities for murder. According to the principle behind this American law they would be able to do that: European Pentobarbital has been used in executions. This is a clear crime in European eyes, and there is a clear link to Europe. But the USA is a sovereign country. What we consider a crime (executing people) is not a crime in the USA and the people of the USA get to decide on that, not we Europeans. What Europe can do (and actually does) is forbid European companies to sell Pentobarbital to the USA. This is the equivalent of the US government forbidding banks from doing business with Liberland.

Rik

[gwnn]

OK I guess I have to spell it out for you: Liberland is not a proper country (it is a bit of unclaimed land between Serbia and Croatia). It has no laws. I was simply asking what you thought about crimes done on no man's land, since in your view where your feet are is such an important criterion apparently. Apparently you think that if I don't carry around the money in a big black briefcase when I defraud the people I intend to defraud, nobody has jurisdiction over me. What if the crime I commit is done on an airplane that is above the North Pole at the time I commit it? No jurisdiction at all? Maybe I don't understand what you mean, but you just keep on bringing up laws that differ between the two countries, whereas the two countries (Switzerland and the US) apparently agree that they will only extradite the suspects if the crimes are recognised as such by both of the countries.

[Aberlour10]

Blatter won 133:73 I think the only way to get him and his clan out of buisness : All main sponsors of the Fifa say we cant go on like this. But I doubt it can ever happen.