🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Cp9Htt.Ky@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>, nishri@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Alex Nishri) writes:
> 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.

At least you are getting better at getting some of your facts straight.  I
disagree with you conclusions though.

I agree that US law restricts the freedom of Americans to conduct business
with Cuba.  That is the definition of an economic embargo.  But is a Canadian
company circumventing American law while operating on Canadian soil?  I
say not.

It is not illegal to provide telephone service from the US to Cuba (although
I belive the ITU has rules about third-country routing of telephone calls).
It is illegal to sell pre-paid calling cards in the U.S. and send part of the
money to Cuba without a license from the U.S. Treasury.  For your parallel
situation, it is not illegal for WiReD to publish their magazine in the
U.S., but it may have violated the court order to sell that issue of WiReD
magazine in Canada.

In neither case is the company "circumventing" the other country's law when
operating outside the jurisdiction of the other country.  They only get in
trouble when they do something within the jurisdiction of that country.  For
example, selling in the U.S. pre-paid calling cards and sending part of
the money to Cuba, or selling issues of a magazine in Canada that contains
material that may be covered by a publication ban.
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100