YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT THAT!!!!! FEDERAL OFFENSE!!!!!!!

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I posted this a Dirty Politics too but it's too fucked not to get redundant with.

Bill sponsored by Lamar Smith, TX (of course ) R ( more "of course" )

If it would have gone through and your friend said "I'm going to the Netherlands this summer and I'm gonna hit the coffeeshops!" and you said "Yay! Hit Amsterdam and stay out of Maastricht, they have that weed pass shit" they could LOCK BOTH YOUR ASSES UP. In Club Fed.

All of this was in the works in 2011 we never heard a peep about it. ( yet more "of course" )

"The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday that would make it a federal crime for U.S. residents to discuss or plan activities on foreign soil that, if carried out in the U.S., would violate the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) -- even if the planned activities are legal in the countries where they're carried out. H.R. 313, the "Drug Trafficking Safe Harbor Elimination Act of 2011," is sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and allows prosecutors to bring conspiracy charges against anyone who discusses, plans or advises someone else to engage in any activity that violates the CSA, the massive federal law that prohibits drugs like marijuana and strictly regulates prescription medication.
"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

01/18/2011 Introduced in House
12/12/2011 Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Judiciary. H. Rept. 112-324, Part I.
12/12/2011 Committee on Energy and Commerce discharged.
12/13/2011 Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote.
12/14/2011 Referred to Senate committee: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

---- BILL KILLED (for now) ---

CONCLUSION

"While Congress has an interest in combating major, international drug trafficking, H.R. 313 is not the solution. The scope of this bill is an excessive response to the Lopez-Vanegas case, which involved large-scale cocaine shipments. Federal drug conspiracy laws are already subject to abuse and impose extreme penalties. H.R. 313, however, exacerbates current law by criminalizing arrangements made in the United States for drug transactions that take place completely outside this country, some of which may not even be illegal in the countries where they occur.

For the forgoing reasons, we respectfully dissent. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/us-drug-policy-war-congress_n_998993.html



http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.313:

[Triple Zero]

Even though I agree that shit is (would be) retarded, I'm gonna do a bit of Devil's Advocate here, cause I want to know what would be wrong with the line of argument:

What if someone were to say "I'm going to Thailand, and get it on with under-age boys!" ?

(though actually that would most likely be illegal in Thailand as well--so there goes part of the Devil's argument)

But even if it were not, in the US the laws regarding age of consent, apply not only to acts committed in the state's own territory, but also to those committed by the state's citizens or inhabitants while they are on foreign soil (no idea how that works in NL, btw, but it wouldn't surprise me if we had a similar law).

Now I'm not sure if that includes talking about it, but given the severity of such matters, good chance it does.

But ENOUGH about age of consent legislation, it's just an illustration (srsly let's not go there lest we attract L_vesh_dy types).

The point the Devil's Advocate is trying to make here, is that this law criminalizing talking about doing drugs over the border where it's legal, is only retarded because the laws concerning drugs criminalization in the US are .. well not quite retarded (let's also not go there) but rather more of a different type of severity compared to other types of crime.

So basically he's arguing moral relativism. Okay, guess I answered my own question about what would be wrong with the line of arguing

Still it's an interesting question. If the sincere belief motivating US drug laws, is that drug (ab)use causes harm to society then why would it be okay to cause this type of harm elsewhere? No never mind it's a stupid question, it's deliberately oversimplifying a super complex scenario.

Though it's still interesting to discuss, since you're living in a sorta Democracy, all laws are basically made up of compromises. Especially the controversial ones, anyway.

So there's things that, because pretty much everyone agrees they're bad and evil, are even illegal if you do it in a differearent country,
and there's things that are not quite agreed upon how bad they are, so it's going to cause a much bigger backlash if you'd outlaw globally for your citizens, because suddenly party of the NIMBY crowd wakes up.
And then there's the (arguably) hypocritical part, where it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't happen to your tribe or nation or state.

[Cain]

It comes down to extraterritoriality.

If you're going to punish people for doing things that are illegal in your country while abroad, it rather suggests that people who come to your country to do things illegal in theirs (like, express certain political opinions, or belong to certain ethnic/religious minority groups) will also be breaking the law.

And since they're breaking the law, if you have an extradition treaty, you are required to pack them off back.

It also undermines state sovereignty.  What if a large number of the population of the Netherlands were to be put on US blacklists, for breaking a US law, which is nevertheless perfectly legal in their own country?  Of course, certain things are considered illegal to do abroad, but they involve acts of terrorism and war crimes.  I'm not comfortable putting drug talk in the same category as "training with Al-Qaeda". 

[AFK]

[waiting for CLOACA to generate my response and the responses to my response.].

[AFK]

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

This quote I found rather funny.  Bill Piper is a dumb-fuck who obviously thinks his followers are dumbfucks.  No, Mr. Dumbass, it wouldn't be the planning of a wedding that would be illegal, it would be the planning of buying the fucking pot that would be illegal.  You can plan weddings all you want asshat. 


I mean, if a wedding really, really hinged on whether or not you smoke pot, I mean, that's, IMO, a little sad.

[AFK]

That amusing observation aside, I don't think it is an appropriate use of resources to prosecute people planning on buying or smoking pot in a place where it is legal to do so.  If it is a drug- related activity they are planning that IS illegal in that country then I think it is fair game.  We dont need to be exporting crime to other countries.  We export enough bullshit as it is.

[Triple Zero]

It also undermines state sovereignty.  What if a large number of the population of the Netherlands were to be put on US blacklists, for breaking a US law, which is nevertheless perfectly legal in their own country?  Of course, certain things are considered illegal to do abroad, but they involve acts of terrorism and war crimes.  I'm not comfortable putting drug talk in the same category as "training with Al-Qaeda".

I thought they already did that? For example the guy that wrote DeCSS (afaik), a tool to circumvent some kind of DRM on DVDs or CDs, wasn't he arrested when coming to the US to attend DefCon (a hacker con)? (this is a long time ago, but I bet there are other examples).


Additionally, a rational reason why such a law in the context of marijuana is a stupid idea, is that a lot of the reasoning for the laws against it in the US don't hold water when it is about people consuming it in the Netherlands. The reasoning basically boiling down to "harmful to society" (which is debatable but not completely irrational either), it is also a fact that recreational pot use in NL is not considered as harmful to society (also again debatable), but in particular that a bunch of US tourists smoking a J in Amsterdam most certainly aren't going to cause any harm. Plus that regulations on pot use among minors are pretty damn strict and Coffeeshop owners know this, and I'm even willing to go as far as saying most of them understand their responsibility in such matters. (Though maybe not in Amsterdam, tourist shithole that it is *cough*)

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

This quote I found rather funny.  Bill Piper is a dumb-fuck who obviously thinks his followers are dumbfucks.  No, Mr. Dumbass, it wouldn't be the planning of a wedding that would be illegal, it would be the planning of buying the fucking pot that would be illegal.  You can plan weddings all you want asshat. 


I mean, if a wedding really, really hinged on whether or not you smoke pot, I mean, that's, IMO, a little sad.

It's a dumb quote, but I'm pretty sure he used that example to illustrate that nice people with good intentions could get caught up in this kind of shit left and right. Not to imply "OMFG NO BUD! WEDDING ROONT"

[Bruno]

Even though I agree that shit is (would be) retarded, I'm gonna do a bit of Devil's Advocate here, cause I want to know what would be wrong with the line of argument:

What if someone were to say "I'm going to Thailand, and get it on with under-age boys!" ?

(though actually that would most likely be illegal in Thailand as well--so there goes part of the Devil's argument)

But even if it were not, in the US the laws regarding age of consent, apply not only to acts committed in the state's own territory, but also to those committed by the state's citizens or inhabitants while they are on foreign soil (no idea how that works in NL, btw, but it wouldn't surprise me if we had a similar law).

Now I'm not sure if that includes talking about it, but given the severity of such matters, good chance it does.

But ENOUGH about age of consent legislation, it's just an illustration (srsly let's not go there lest we attract L_vesh_dy types).

The point the Devil's Advocate is trying to make here, is that this law criminalizing talking about doing drugs over the border where it's legal, is only retarded because the laws concerning drugs criminalization in the US are .. well not quite retarded (let's also not go there) but rather more of a different type of severity compared to other types of crime.

So basically he's arguing moral relativism. Okay, guess I answered my own question about what would be wrong with the line of arguing

Still it's an interesting question. If the sincere belief motivating US drug laws, is that drug (ab)use causes harm to society then why would it be okay to cause this type of harm elsewhere? No never mind it's a stupid question, it's deliberately oversimplifying a super complex scenario.

Though it's still interesting to discuss, since you're living in a sorta Democracy, all laws are basically made up of compromises. Especially the controversial ones, anyway.

So there's things that, because pretty much everyone agrees they're bad and evil, are even illegal if you do it in a differearent country,
and there's things that are not quite agreed upon how bad they are, so it's going to cause a much bigger backlash if you'd outlaw globally for your citizens, because suddenly party of the NIMBY crowd wakes up.
And then there's the (arguably) hypocritical part, where it doesn't matter as long as it doesn't happen to your tribe or nation or state.

In the US, we have the PROTECT Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003

[AFK]

"Under this bill, if a young couple plans a wedding in Amsterdam, and as part of the wedding, they plan to buy the bridal party some marijuana, they would be subject to prosecution," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for reforming the country's drug laws. "The strange thing is that the purchase of and smoking the marijuana while you're there wouldn't be illegal. But this law would make planning the wedding from the U.S. a federal crime."

This quote I found rather funny.  Bill Piper is a dumb-fuck who obviously thinks his followers are dumbfucks.  No, Mr. Dumbass, it wouldn't be the planning of a wedding that would be illegal, it would be the planning of buying the fucking pot that would be illegal.  You can plan weddings all you want asshat. 


I mean, if a wedding really, really hinged on whether or not you smoke pot, I mean, that's, IMO, a little sad.

It's a dumb quote, but I'm pretty sure he used that example to illustrate that nice people with good intentions could get caught up in this kind of shit left and right. Not to imply "OMFG NO BUD! WEDDING ROONT"

Thats fine but he should stick to the facts and not claim someone can get arrested for planning a wedding abroad when it is the planning a pot purchase that would h ave got them arrested under this bill, not th e actual wedding plans.


It's the typical hyperbole abd conflation that comes from these anti-Fed, Drug.  policy. types.  They. do their movement a disservice with this nonsense.

[Telarus]

I think his point, RWHN, would be that anyone involved with planning the wedding (and not just the point-buy of cannabis) could be charged as "Conspirators".

[Telarus]

Because of the chillingly perverse "inversion" of the thread title, I'd like to drop this here (note it's one of Lamar's collegues on this one too):

Proposed US law makes domestic propaganda legal

Buzzfeed's Michael Hastings reports on a revision to the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987, which prohibit the use of government disinformation and propaganda campaigns within the USA. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State, would allow the US government to knowingly tell lies to its people in order to promote the government's own policies.

The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. "It removes the protection for Americans," says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. "It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false."

According to this official, "senior public affairs" officers within the Department of Defense want to "get rid" of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Critics of the bill point out that there was rigorous debate when Smith Mundt passed, and the fact that this is so "under the radar," as the Pentagon official puts it, is troubling.

The Pentagon spends some $4 billion a year to sway public opinion already, and it was recently revealed by USA Today the DoD spent $202 million on information operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last year.

Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban (Thanks, Owlswan!)

[AFK]

I think his point, RWHN, would be that anyone involved with planning the wedding (and not just the point-buy of cannabis) could be charged as "Conspirators".

That's a huge stretch and assumes that buying a wedding couple some pot as a gift is more significant and central to the overall wedding plans than buying them a toaster or a cheese grater. 

[LMNO]

Shouldn't the main objection be that writing about an action is fundamentally different than acting?

Otherwise, if I posted, "I'm gonna go drink seven martinis and then drive home!" I'd be arrested for DUI, regardless if I actually did.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Because of the chillingly perverse "inversion" of the thread title, I'd like to drop this here (note it's one of Lamar's collegues on this one too):

Proposed US law makes domestic propaganda legal

Buzzfeed's Michael Hastings reports on a revision to the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987, which prohibit the use of government disinformation and propaganda campaigns within the USA. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Rep. Adam Smith from Washington State, would allow the US government to knowingly tell lies to its people in order to promote the government's own policies.

The new law would give sweeping powers to the State Department and Pentagon to push television, radio, newspaper, and social media onto the U.S. public. "It removes the protection for Americans," says a Pentagon official who is concerned about the law. "It removes oversight from the people who want to put out this information. There are no checks and balances. No one knows if the information is accurate, partially accurate, or entirely false."

According to this official, "senior public affairs" officers within the Department of Defense want to "get rid" of Smith-Mundt and other restrictions because it prevents information activities designed to prop up unpopular policies—like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Critics of the bill point out that there was rigorous debate when Smith Mundt passed, and the fact that this is so "under the radar," as the Pentagon official puts it, is troubling.

The Pentagon spends some $4 billion a year to sway public opinion already, and it was recently revealed by USA Today the DoD spent $202 million on information operations in Iraq and Afghanistan last year.

Congressmen Seek To Lift Propaganda Ban (Thanks, Owlswan!)

Yeah, that's massively fucked up.