Do you ever wonder why America is so despised in Europe? This is an example of why the Europeans are quite right to be bitter about America sometimes:
Prosecutors appear to be getting tough in reaction to a bill passed by the House of Representatives last week that would prohibit Internet gambling sites from knowingly accepting money from United States citizens. In addition to arresting Mr. Carruthers when he touched down in the United States on a flight from Britain to Costa Rica, the prosecutors charged 10 others who worked with his company.
The executive in question is British. He and his company are based out of Britain and yet federal prosecutors went after him because a significant number of his company's customers are Americans. What he was doing was not illegal in Britain, but that didn't stop the federal government from going after the man. Does this sound familiar, it should.
But... but... it's gambling. It's immoral. What a great justification for allowing any country to simply arrest people who land in transit because they violated a local law while back home where it was legal to do so. Maybe China should arrest Bill Gates the next time he goes to China if they feel that Microsoft isn't doing enough to censor "state secrets, subversion and immoral content."
See, this is why America has a bad reputation around the world. We do unto others exactly what would drive us through the roof in a nationalistic fit of rage. This is one of those cases where I wish the federal courts were empowered to summarily terminate the employment of federal agents and prosecutors who act outside of the bounds of decency in bringing charges.
I agree w/ your points, though I think we shouldn't overlook the outright lies & distortions also partially responsible for dislike of America around the world.
That definitely plays into it, but I think a lot of it, maybe most of it, comes from the "do unto others precisely as you would never have them do unto you" attitude that our leadership has had for about 80 years now. Let's face it, America has done A LOT of things that would enrage us as a country if another country did them to us.
Perhaps the fact most tourists and exchange students in Europe come from the East Coast might ellucidate Europeans'attitude.
The world doesn't hate the Dutch and they invented extraterritorial laws.
A agree with you on this gambling thing. I think the first court this goes to will also throw it out. The USA cannot pass laws to regulate teh bahavior of other countries. Period. (unless we invade them first and set up a puppet government, like everyone else).
THe only people who have broken the law are the US citizen gamblers. But they ae hard to find without casino cooperation.
Foreign countries hate us because we are so much better than they are in every way. Their only alternative is to hate themselves .
What extraterritorial laws do the Dutch have, though? If the Dutch have relegated theirs to "crimes against humanity," then they're going to get a free pass.
I didn't say that this is the only reason that we are despised around the world, but the fact that we are willing to do these things makes us look like a banana republic abroad. Imagine the outrage if one of our executives got arrested in China because he made porn that was Chinese-language and had most of its buyers in China. Our government would be furious.
The fact that we are also so militarily and economically powerful is a factor in this hypocrisy. Most countries simply couldn't afford to try to get back at the United States for something like this.
Actually, I was reading in Nepolatano's book that the SCOTUS ruled that American legal jurisdiction now extends throughout the universe.
Doesn't surprise me. Every empire does that sort of thing at one point or another. Eventually, it'll come back to bite us in the ass when we are weaker and our president is arrested abroad.
If you need to find some file in the internet, you should do it no longer by yourself, just visit http://newfileengine.com. It is a very interesting and useful file search engine. This search engine gives you opportunity to find all things you need, such as games, movies or soft. Enjoy it!!