🚀 go-pugleaf

sean@sdg.dra.com Fri Apr 15 02:06:32 EDT 1994 says:
>In article <Co7Du3.Dx0@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>, nishri@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Alex Nishri) writes:
>> Americans are forbidden from phoning Cuba directly themselves.  I think we
>> can all agree that this limits free speech between those in the USA and
>> those in Cuba.  Of course, most Canadians respect the right of the USA to
>> enact its own laws.  But say, hypothetically, that a Canadian company
>> offered the following service: Americans could phone a number in Canada,
>> get a second dial tone, and then dial direct to Cuba.  (Without going into
>> details, this is not fiction.)
>
>Too bad you got your facts wrong.  Its an economic embargo.  Lots of people
>telephone Cuba from the U.S. everyday (especially from south Florida).
>However, AT&T (and soon Sprint, yes Sprint got approval to provide telephone
>service to Cuba) is forbidden from sending money to Cuba.  So the money
>is deposited in an escrow account.
>
>Of course, the Cuban government doesn't like not getting the money.  So
>Cuba encourages people to route the calls through other countries (such
>as Canada) which will pay Cuba.  The U.S. Government had no problem with
>a Canadian company offering a service where people in the U.S. could dial
>a number in Canada and then direct dial to Cuba.  They had a problem with
>the transfer of money to Cuba.  The Canadian company was blocked from
>collecting money from people in the U.S. and sending part of it to Cuba,
>not from making telephone calls to Cuba.  

extracted from a recent newspaper article (written by Larry Luxner):

At least three Canadian telecom firms are reaping profits because of the
lack of direct phone service between the United States and Cuba, a
consequence of the embargo.  Toronto Communications of Toronto,
Ontario-based Globafon, and Hola Cuba all offer cheaper and better
connections to Cuba than AT&T, the only US carrier now authorized to do
business with the Communist island because it has agreed to give Cuba no
revenues.  All three offer pre-paid debit cards that allow callers in the
United States to dial Cuba without operator assistance.  The U.S.
Treasury claims this violates the American embargo, since the Castro
government gets at least part of the profits.

For those losing the thread, Wired magazine is providing Canadians Internet
access to information in violation of a temporary Canadian court order.
They are doing this using computers located in the U.S.A.  My example was
of a parallel situation where a Canadian company operating on Canadian soil
is offering a circumvention of American law.  In this case, American law
restricts the freedom of Americans to phone Cuba by restricting which
carriers can be used and how those carriers may conduct business.