Re: FROM A FRIEND . . . (the joys of boating)

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 4:00 PM 9/21/95, Landon Dyer wrote:

>  here's a possible bullshit wrinkle.  i'm not a lawyer, but one of my
>bosses was, once.
>
>  said boss owned a boat that was of canadian registry.  he was a
>canadian citizen with a green card.  he *claimed* that, even when
>docked in the SF bay area, his boat was technically considered
>canadian territory, due to some maritime law malarky.  US authorities
>theoretically had to go through various hoops to legally board his
>vessel.
>
>  i wouldn't try to halt a SWAT team, or even the local fuzz, with
>this tidbit of legal gaga.  but doing crypto development on such a
>vessel might hold up in court for something as squishy as ITAR.

I'm skeptical of this, as boating friends of mine tell me they are much
more easily boarded by the various water.cops who check for compliance with
navigation laws, with drug laws, with Customs laws, etc.

Within the 3-mile limits, or further out (?), broad discretion is given to
the water.cops who tell you to "Prepare to be boarded."

That a ship or boat is of Panamanian, Liberian, or even Candian registry
does not seem to have any effect on enforcement of drug-smuggling,
gun-running, waste-dumping, or reckless-manouvering laws.

I've already expressed my views on the hype surrounding the "This T-Shirt
Has Been Declared to be a Munition" hoopla, so I won't draw the obvious
inference about whether someone wearing an RSA-in-Perl t-shirt while
scrubbing their decks will be shot on sight. (Was Randy Weaver's wife
wearing an illegal t-shirt? Hmmmhhh, many conspiracy angles here!)

--Tim May

Notice: With 1000 people on the Cypherpunks list, and many on other lists I
am on, nearly every article I write generates at least one question,
request for more information, dispute with my choice of words, etc. I have
been trying to respond to these, usually privately, but the burden has
become too much, and I no longer plan to respond to trivial or ephemeral
points. If you don't hear from me, this is why. Some requests for pointers
to information will still be handled, but I advise people to learn how to
use the archives and/or search tools.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."