C. Hatton Humphrey wrote: >>Suppose some American teenager comes to the Netherlands at the age of >>17. Meets somebody over 18, they have sex. That would be punishable >>under US Federal Law if I understand it correctly, so this somebody >>would have to be arrested as soon as he/she enters the US. Yet we >>explicitly chose to allow this in the Netherlands, for our own reasons. >>Or an American citizen came here to work as prostitute (s)he would be >>arrested when visiting relatives for Christmas. But prostitution is also >>legal here, for reasons of our choosing. > > Sorry, both examples you cite are incorrect. Prostitution and statutory > rape are both laws at the state level.
OK, whatever. You get the point, and I am pretty sure that once we start digging (euthanasia?) we can find something that we consider legal and the US Federal Law does not. > To give you an example of wha you're trying to get at, it would take someone > killing a person in the US and then fleeing to a European country. James > Copp is an example of this. He is charged with the assination of a person. > He fled to Canada and then to France. He is actually being tried under both > Federal and State courts because of the varieties of laws he broke. No, that's not what I am getting at. Then the crime is commited in the country that wants to prosecute him. > Another example would be a student that flew to Amsterdam and partook of > whatever and whenever. If he or she tried to bring some of the goodies back > to the US then that person would be breaking federal laws and would be > arrested if caught. And charged with smuggling I bet, not with using. > The official charges that Lindh pled guilty to today were that he fought in > a foreign military against US forces while still a citizen of the US. There > are federal laws stating that any violent action against a federal employee > (in this case I think they were referring to the CIA agents as the federal > employees) is an immediate federal offense. The second charge was posession > of explosives while committing a felony. So he was armed with an AK-47 and > two grenades and going up against CIA operatives. He broke federal laws. That means that the CIA operatives identified themselves as being CIA right? Must be a pretty unusual situation for them to do in a foreign country :) > Doing so in any other civilized nation, including the Netherlands, would > earn him a ticket on a plane in handcuffs for extradition. No. Many countries, including the Netherlands, don't extradite when a person is charged with a capital crime. >>We choose which rules there are on our territory and if those rules >>allow things to be done to or by US citizens that would not be allowed >>in the US maybe the US should forbid its citizens to travel here, but it >>should not impose its law on our territory. > > There are such things as international treaties and extraditions. But they need this thing called ratification. You know, like the ICC treaty :) And that is an explicit transfer of authority by the people that have the legal power to do so. > Also > remember that at the time of his capture the US was occupying Afganistan. > US military bases are considered US soil which makes them exempt from local > laws and subject to both Federal laws and the rules set forth by the Uniform > Code of Military Justice. Service personnel are expected to follow both the > laws they are subject to on their base as well as local laws, customs and > traditions (to a point, I know there's been a debate over female personnel > being required to wear face coverings in Muslim countries) as well. So if there is an official document that designates the specific area where he was captured as US military base he would be under US law. Or does that also require proper notification and stuff? > It's not all cut and dried. There's also a very difficult line that people > that don't live in the US don't see that seperates the laws of each of the > 50 states from the laws of the federal government. I see the begin and the end line. I just don't know where it runs in between, although I am pretty sure that crossing a state line while commiting something else is a good way to get into contact with the Feds. Jochem ______________________________________________________________________ Signup for the Fusion Authority news alert and keep up with the latest news in ColdFusion and related topics. http://www.fusionauthority.com/signup.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-community@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
