It's funny how the US feels entitled to do all these things, but when other countries want the US to allow them to do the same, there's no way. The war crimes court comes to mind as the most blatant example of this "one rule for you, another for us" mentality.
The United States constitution forbids anything like the war crimes court. Also, the ICC and all war crimes courts are a farce -- they are show trials for all practical purposes, and I think extremely dangerous.
1. If a person commits heinous crimes in their country then it is up to their country to handle it.
2. If the crimes are committed in another country it up to that country to handle it.
There is no need for the ICC except to lend legitimacy to illegitimate claims.
I agree though, I can't believe that other countries are willing to hand over data of their citizens that should be protected by them.
If it was their stance that a war crimes court is a bad thing, then it would be a fine, principled stand that I wouldn't have a problem with. But given that the US has never had a problem trying foreigners in war crimes courts (e.g. Nürnberg, or the whole Guantanamo/terrorist deal), they apparently don't think their constitution is good enough to apply it in a more wholesale fashion.
I remember Noam Chomsky saying something like "An argument whose validity depends on who is using it is merely an attempt at justification without any substance", and that seems a lot like what we're seeing here.
1. After Nuremburg it was a show trial put on by Stalin, there was no justification for the court -- it wasn't like the laws they broke existed in some sort of international context.
2. Not to defend Guantanamo -- I think it's abhorrent, but it is not a war crimes court, it's a place where prisoners of "war" are being taken.
As I said before, I think the entire concept of war crimes in nebulous and if there is any enforcement it should be done by country affected.
From what I understand, one objection is that trying an American citizen in an international court violates the right to due process. How? There presumably is a process defined by a treaty which the US has agreed to.
The other objection: ...implies that the Court does not have the power to try Americans for crimes committed on U.S. territory.
Is it not in Congress' power to grant jurisdiction to a court?
Edit:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause)
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
> The United States constitution forbids anything like the war crimes court.
Except that we don't have the problem with ICC when it benefits us. If they rule against our interest we declare "that doesn't apply to us." Well, fine then, Germany should have declared "Nuremberd trials don't apply to us", Serbia should have said "Milosevic's trial doesn't apply to us." and so on.
The reason ICC exists it so enforce human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. These are perpetraited by terrorist states that use fear and intimidation around the world without any regard to human life. It seems to me there is a need for ICC today just like there was a need for it after WWII.
It annoys a lot of people that the US can extradite someone from the UK without providing any evidence, yet the US never got around to ratifying it so the UK can extradite someone from the US without providing any evidence.
Of course, it may just be that the UK government is a bunch of idiots who think it's a good idea to give foreign legal systems this much power over their citizens, and the US has more sense.
The concerns were that there are a few members of certain Irish cultural organisations happily living in the US and it would wreck the peace process to extradite them, while NOT extraditing them would raise objections from the other side.
And, it's rather easier to bring a private prosecution for say war crimes in the UK - and the government didn't want the embarrassment of having to arrest various senior US politicians. This happened recently with an attempt by a human rights group to prosecute an Israeli gerneral over the west bank 'invasion'. The government couldn't stop the warrant being issued but got round it by the politican not leaving the plane when it landed in London and the police claiming that an El Al plane was Israeli soil and they didn't have jurisdiction.
If you don't have a treaty then you are part of the axis of evil - or at the very least they don't let your soldiers play with their soldiers and your politicians don't get to stand on the Whitehouse lawn looking like a world statesman.
Not since Suez, the last time the UK got to play at soldiers against the US wishes was the Falklands.
The UK has a huge amount of investment in the US, if the US were to treat the UK like it did France after they refused to join the 'coalition of the willing' it would do a lot more harm to the UK economy than boycotting Perrier did to France's
> it may just be that the UK government is a bunch of idiots who think it's a good idea to give foreign legal systems this much power over their citizens
Hey, all we did was ask. Your guys keep saying yes, so we keep asking.
I would love to see the EU keep the US in check by saying "no" to us more often. (The US has no trouble telling the EU "no", after all.) China does it, so why not the EU?
That's just the thing. The US didn't ask the EU, they just secretly subpoenaed the records from SWIFT, which had a mirror server in the US with all the records (incl. transactions inside the EU). Breaking several countries privacy laws in the process.
SWIFT has changed their infrastructure to no longer mirror to the US, So the US pressured the European Council to create an interim agreement allowing the US to access EU banking data. This agreement was made one day before the Lisbon Treaty went into effect, which gives the European Parliament increased powers. So while the EP can't cancel the interim agreement, they've now voted against the continuation of the deal.
What do you mean? First of all that was Germany, so 'EU governments' does not apply in that case. Second it is a big difference between buying information about your citizens and selling information about you citizens.
Yes, there's a difference, but it's still very wrong.
We're talking about governments buying illegally obtained information, thus sanctioning the crime. How is this different from the government not being allowed to wire-tap its citizens, but if they go on the black market and get a black-hat to do it, it's suddenly OK? The only reason is the presence of an international border.
How the information was obtained outside of Germany may be a crime, but not in Germany.
As a citizen of Germany you are required to provide to the German government information that determines taxes owed. Any attempt to evade this obligation is a crime in Germany.
In this case Germany has a right to the information.
The law of any country anyone would consider civilized. Including Germany, Denmark, Lichtenstein and Switzerland.
> In this case Germany has a right to the information.
Well, states don't have rights. Their citizens are required to hand over the information, and the government is entitled to punish citizens that fail to do so. But that's a minor point -- Yes, Germany is entitled to that information, but they don't have a right to break the law of another country to get that information. What happened to Lichtensteins right to sovereignty?
And what if it wasn't tax information, but information on ethnicity? Seriously, information about citizens that one government "has a right to", that another government doesn't mind helping you conceal. Not to bash Germany in particular, but we have privacy laws for a reason.
I'm not a fan of tax-evasion, but tax collection is not, in itself, such a holy venture that it warrants any means.
Governments does not really need to care for other governments laws, that's the difference. So it's neither illegal or a crime as long as a foreign government is concerned.
Is this type of monitoring legal in the US when monitoring bank transactions in the US? Does it already happen in the US? Imagine the reaction if this had been the other way around, the damn Europeans spying on US bank transaction in the US.
Well, I believe transactions in the US are monitored. At least large cash withdrawals and deposits are. 5,000 or more is usually reported by the banks.
This will most certainly be a setback for tracking and disrupting terrorist/rogue state/criminal financing operations. I personally know someone who used to use Swift data (among other financial transaction tracking data) to track "bad-guys" doing very, very bad things. They are out there, they are gaming the system, they are hiding behind loop holes and they do mean us harm.
Hopefully the privacy concerns can be worked out asap.
The problem is when this is used to give eg. Raytheon the details of payments made to a European company for eg a radar system in some 3rd country - which lets them put in an advantageous position to bid for the next bit of work.
29 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 75.0 ms ] thread1. If a person commits heinous crimes in their country then it is up to their country to handle it.
2. If the crimes are committed in another country it up to that country to handle it.
There is no need for the ICC except to lend legitimacy to illegitimate claims.
I agree though, I can't believe that other countries are willing to hand over data of their citizens that should be protected by them.
I remember Noam Chomsky saying something like "An argument whose validity depends on who is using it is merely an attempt at justification without any substance", and that seems a lot like what we're seeing here.
As I said before, I think the entire concept of war crimes in nebulous and if there is any enforcement it should be done by country affected.
The other objection: ...implies that the Court does not have the power to try Americans for crimes committed on U.S. territory.
Is it not in Congress' power to grant jurisdiction to a court?
Edit: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause) This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Except that we don't have the problem with ICC when it benefits us. If they rule against our interest we declare "that doesn't apply to us." Well, fine then, Germany should have declared "Nuremberd trials don't apply to us", Serbia should have said "Milosevic's trial doesn't apply to us." and so on.
The reason ICC exists it so enforce human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. These are perpetraited by terrorist states that use fear and intimidation around the world without any regard to human life. It seems to me there is a need for ICC today just like there was a need for it after WWII.
It annoys a lot of people that the US can extradite someone from the UK without providing any evidence, yet the US never got around to ratifying it so the UK can extradite someone from the US without providing any evidence.
Of course, it may just be that the UK government is a bunch of idiots who think it's a good idea to give foreign legal systems this much power over their citizens, and the US has more sense.
The concerns were that there are a few members of certain Irish cultural organisations happily living in the US and it would wreck the peace process to extradite them, while NOT extraditing them would raise objections from the other side.
And, it's rather easier to bring a private prosecution for say war crimes in the UK - and the government didn't want the embarrassment of having to arrest various senior US politicians. This happened recently with an attempt by a human rights group to prosecute an Israeli gerneral over the west bank 'invasion'. The government couldn't stop the warrant being issued but got round it by the politican not leaving the plane when it landed in London and the police claiming that an El Al plane was Israeli soil and they didn't have jurisdiction.
If this were the case, wouldn't it be better not to have the treaty in the first place? Then no questions are asked at all.
And what was wrong with the old treaty, apart from the inconvenience of having to produce enough evidence to satisfy a British judge?
The UK has a huge amount of investment in the US, if the US were to treat the UK like it did France after they refused to join the 'coalition of the willing' it would do a lot more harm to the UK economy than boycotting Perrier did to France's
Sadly, this appears to be the case.
I would love to see the EU keep the US in check by saying "no" to us more often. (The US has no trouble telling the EU "no", after all.) China does it, so why not the EU?
SWIFT has changed their infrastructure to no longer mirror to the US, So the US pressured the European Council to create an interim agreement allowing the US to access EU banking data. This agreement was made one day before the Lisbon Treaty went into effect, which gives the European Parliament increased powers. So while the EP can't cancel the interim agreement, they've now voted against the continuation of the deal.
The resolution & Some background: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//... Council overrules Parliament: http://www.euractiv.com/en/justice/council-overrules-parliam... Recommended search term: "swift tftp"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/informant-off...
Yes, there's a difference, but it's still very wrong.
We're talking about governments buying illegally obtained information, thus sanctioning the crime. How is this different from the government not being allowed to wire-tap its citizens, but if they go on the black market and get a black-hat to do it, it's suddenly OK? The only reason is the presence of an international border.
How the information was obtained outside of Germany may be a crime, but not in Germany.
As a citizen of Germany you are required to provide to the German government information that determines taxes owed. Any attempt to evade this obligation is a crime in Germany.
In this case Germany has a right to the information.
The law of any country anyone would consider civilized. Including Germany, Denmark, Lichtenstein and Switzerland.
> In this case Germany has a right to the information.
Well, states don't have rights. Their citizens are required to hand over the information, and the government is entitled to punish citizens that fail to do so. But that's a minor point -- Yes, Germany is entitled to that information, but they don't have a right to break the law of another country to get that information. What happened to Lichtensteins right to sovereignty?
And what if it wasn't tax information, but information on ethnicity? Seriously, information about citizens that one government "has a right to", that another government doesn't mind helping you conceal. Not to bash Germany in particular, but we have privacy laws for a reason.
I'm not a fan of tax-evasion, but tax collection is not, in itself, such a holy venture that it warrants any means.
And yes, governments and borders go hand in hand.
Hopefully the privacy concerns can be worked out asap.