Dropping out of the USA

Anonymous nobody at remailer.privacy.at
Tue Jul 10 17:37:01 PDT 2001


Tim May wrote:
> I will say that there is no country out there that seems to be
> beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement, pace the points we discuss
> so often about drug warriors, freezing of accounts, extradition,
> etc.  Even Yugoslavia has just bowed to U.S. financing pressures
> (sending Milosevic to the Hague for a show trial).

The cost is higher, though, especially the cost of figuring out what
you are doing.  You are mostly out from under the footprint.  For
example, it's much more difficult for the Feds to illegally tap your
phone in, say, Russia.  Also, it will be harder for them to do their
thing without tipping you off.

The Feds have to use a certain amount of discretion when operating in
other countries.  When Ames was meeting his Russian handlers in
Colombia, the FBI tried to catch him at it, but blew it because they
were there illegally and had to exercise caution.

Many countries are getting sensitive to violations of their
sovereignty by the U.S., so there may be governments which would not
cooperate readily, especially if they like your presence for, say,
business reasons.

Other countries may also not be locked into the same technophobic
paranoid hysteria which seems to be gripping the folks in Washington
these days.  Somebody sending a lot of encrypted mail may seem pretty
harmless in a more relaxed part of the world.

While it's too bad that there isn't a single Libertarian government
out there, other countries may still have uses.  Two risky investments
is a better deal than one big investment with the same risk.





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