On Jun 6, 2013, at 12:01 , Roy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 6/6/2013 11:07 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>> On Jun 5, 2013, at 22:30 , Roy <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/5/2013 4:40 PM, Nick Khamis wrote:
>>>> On 6/5/13, Sameer Khosla <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> My personal favorite is the number of notices that we receive as DMCA
>>>>> takedown notices, citing the specific laws.
>>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure US copyright laws even apply to us here in Canada?
>>>> What countries have no internet laws?
>>>>
>>>> N.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> US laws apply where ever the US says they apply.
>>>
>> How do you figure that?
>
> A government can say anything it wants to
That's not what you said. You said "US laws apply wherever the US says they
apply."
I agree that the US government can claim its laws apply wherever they wish to
clam they apply.
That is a far cry from having them ACTUALLY apply there.
>
>>
>> The US power to enforce US law is limited to:
>>
>> 1. US Citizens (pretty much wherever they are, unfortunately)
>> 2. Things that happen within the borders of the united states
>> 3. Transactions involving entities within the borders of the
>> united states or
>> citizens of the US.
>>
>> Beyond that, their power is supposed to be pretty limited.
>
> Limited by who?
>
Unfortunately, that is the real crux of the matter, now, isn't. However, at
least on a theoretical level, the government should be limited by the powers
granted to it by the constitution and by the voters.
> A government can pass any law that it wants to and apply it to anyone. It
> then becomes a question of how it enforces that law and that is limited by
> its ability to project power. See
Yes and no. Depends somewhat on the structure of the government. In the case of
the united States, Congress can pass any bill that they want, however, absent a
2/3rd majority, it then needs signature of the president. Beyond that, you
still have the issue that the judiciary may strike that law down as
unconstitutional.
As an example, I'm quite certain that if the US Congress passed a law stating
that we would tax all Spanish citizens residing on Spanish soil $100 per year
in perpetuity, that law would have the following problems:
1. The president would probably never sign it.
2. If the president signed it, the supreme court would likely
demonstrate that it can, in fact, act with great
haste in repealing it.
3. I doubt that any Spanish citizen on Spanish soil would have any
belief whatsoever that the law actually
applied to them.
4. For any meaningful value of the word "apply", the law would not
actually apply to said citizens.
Finally when it came to enforcing the law, I doubt that the US tax collectors
and law enforcement officers would be welcomed into Spain with open arms to
carry out this application of law. While the US may well be capable of taking
on the EU militarily, I suspect it would be very costly to do so and it
certainly wouldn't be well supported by the citizenry which I believe would
make it difficult for the government to sustain said revenue collection
campaign.
Owen
