On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 1:25 PM grarpamp <grarp...@gmail.com> wrote: > http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/sealand-and-havenco/ > > Rumors suggest that WikiLeaks might try to avoid government power by > putting … > James Grimmelmann - 3/27/2012, 9:00 PM > A few weeks ago, Fox News breathlessly reported that the embattled > WikiLeaks operation was looking to start a new life under on the sea. > WikiLeaks, the article speculated, might try to escape its legal > troubles by putting its servers on Sealand, a World War II > anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the English coast in the North > Sea, a place that calls itself an independent nation. It sounds > perfect for WikiLeaks: a friendly, legally unassailable host with an > anything-goes attitude. > > But readers with a memory of the early 2000s might be wondering, > "Didn't someone already try this? How did that work out?" Good > questions. From 2000 to 2008, a company called HavenCo did indeed > offer no-questions-asked colocation on Sealand... > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhCVoKZYYNU > Play this one big and loud... > > I used to have high hopes for this approach, to the extent that I got involved with the Seasteading Institute. But eventually I came to my senses and realized that if you're stationary, visible, doing something that pisses off governments, and don't have an already-recognized government to protect you, you're totally fucked. You're either operating under some particular government's laws, or you're not. And if you're not operating under come government's laws, you're not a human being as far as governments are concerned. Just look at what the US does to "unlawful combatants."
TSI's plan was to fly "flags of convenience," which allows some amount of jurisdiction shopping without constraining location, but that doesn't help with servers because they can already be located within the borders of whatever country whose flag you'd fly.
