U.S. attacks on Britain escalate
The United States Department of Justice committed another act of war yesterday, kidnapping a British citizen and imprisoning him for activities that are legal in his home country. David Carruthers, the CEO of BetOnSports, a British company, was arrested at the Fort Worth, Texas airport while changing planes en route from Britain to Costa Rica. Carruthers was among 11 people and four companies indicted by the U.S. Attorney in St. Louis for the "crime" of allowing people to wager on sporting events via the Internet. (Four other defendants were also arrested in the U.S. yesterday.) Prosecutors will try to deny Carruthers bail, meaning he could be imprisoned for years while awaiting trial.
The DOJ also intends to steal nearly $4.5 billion in assets belonging to Carruthers and his co-defendants under the pretext of "forfeiture" for their "criminal" acts.
The charges are the usual potpourri of subjective political offenses: rackateering, fraud, interference with the Internal Revenue Service, et al. But the premise of this case is simple: Carruthers provided willing consumers with a service that the U.S. government has arbitrarily banned. Sports wagering is legal in Britain and most other countries. But in the U.S., it's now effectively illegal to even advocate legalized gaming, as Carruthers was a vocal critic of U.S. anti-gaming laws.
The kidnapping of Carruthers comes a week after U.S. officials extradited three British executives (under an illegal treaty) wanted for allegedly defrauding a British bank that had dealings with Enron. Another British man, Ian Norris, is fighting extradition to the U.S. after DOJ prosecutors intentionally misled a British court into equating "price fixing" with the common law crime "conspiracy to defraud." The DOJ's lie was designed to circumvent the traditional extradition requirement that the alleged offense be a crime in both countries. "Price fixing" was not a crime in the UK during the time of Norris's alleged violations under U.S. law. And no British court had ever accepted the view that price fixing was equiavalent to fraud. (Indeed, U.S. prosecutors rarely make that argument in this country, presenting "price fixing" as an injury against competition.)
It's unclear whether Tony Blair's government will respond to the repeated violations of its citizens' rights (as well as Britain's sovereignty) by DOJ prosecutors. Blair has defended the Enron and Norris extraditions, but there has been no official comment, to my knowledge, on the Carruthers kidnapping. Radley Balko of the Cato Institute suggested Blair would finally grow a spine and stand up to American bullying:
Britain has embraced Internet gambling and gets a substantial amount of tax revenue from the $12 billion U.S. consumers spend gambling online each year, much of it with U.K.-incorporated gaming sites. You have to think U.K. officials would have an interest in maintaining those revenues, not to mention in protecting their citizens, and in the integrity of the tech sector of their markets, which took a spill after Carruthers’ arrest.U.S. prosecutors are trying to destroy Britain's Internet gaming industry. Such political attacks on another nation's economic infrastructure is an unequivocal act of war (just look at the War of 1812.)
Comments (10)
This is despicable behavior on the part of the United States. If the British government has any balls at all, it will put a stop to this.
Published: July 18, 2006 12:08 PM
Another example of democratic governments limiting the rights of individuals (in this case US gamblers) in order to satisfy the majority's (in this case probably only around 30% of Americans) opposition to internet gambling. Majority rule may be the lesser evil (compared to dictatorship), but evil it still remains.
Published: July 18, 2006 2:08 PM
The previous comment may be partially missing the point.
I think the reason the US government is cracking down on internet gaming is not because of any opposition to gaming. Not at all. Just look at all the state lotteries and state regulated casinos.
The issue is that internet gaming cannot be regulated (read controlled) by the US and state governments, and most importantly, cannot be taxed. That is what they are afraid of.
Published: July 18, 2006 2:15 PM
Maybe MI6 will eliminate the attorney general of St. Louis.
Where is James Bond when you need him?
Published: July 18, 2006 4:55 PM
When will people learn? If your final destination is not in the US, don't change planes there! This is hardly the first case of someone just passing through being harassed, imprisoned, deported, or "rendered" to an offshore torture chamber.
Published: July 19, 2006 12:06 AM
There are two attrocities here.
One is the effort to ban on internet gambling.
The other one, the much more important thing, is the kidnapping part.
The guy was kidnapped at the transit lounge. Which I believe is not legally considered the US as the the embassies. It is a neutral zone mostly. Thats why there are duty free shops in transit zones. Unless you go through the passport check and customs you have not set foot in the US.
I dont even think FEDs can pass through the transit lounge without leaving the US
Published: July 19, 2006 5:16 AM
So when does the UK bomb some innocent Americans over this?
Published: July 20, 2006 3:38 AM
The entire legal theory that the government is using is outrageous, and their actions are endangering all of us on the internet here.
Consider: A publicly traded corporation, in the UK, runs a perfectly legal gambling operation in Costa Rica. Some US citizens use their website, along with citizens of dozens of other countries.
The US Government arrests the company president while he's on a flight from Costa Rica to London, because the company's internet presence can be reached by American citizens. The US government also arrested people who merely assisted the corporation in some way, such as by placing advertising.
Sure, gambling is bad, evil, etc., at least according to some of us Americans. But guess what? It's a two way street. If we can arrest Britons or Costariquenos (or whatever they call themselves) for violating American laws, who will protect us from:
Saudi Arabia arresting online wine merchants, or credit card promoters, based on the theory that alcohol and interest are illegal according to Islamic law?
Vatican City from arresting Americans who sell condoms online, or providers of abortion information? (on a stopover in Rome, perhaps?)
Germany from arresting online booksellers who sell Nazi books?
China from arresting American bloggers who tell the truth about China's Tibet policy (a truth that's illegal to tell in China.)
I've even heard that selling chewing gum is illegal in Singapore. Is it really? I don't know. The point is, I don't want to have to know.
Does my government contend that going online makes me subject to all the jurisdictions where my website might be viewed? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be "yes!" God help us if they get away with this...
Published: July 21, 2006 7:10 PM
Speaking of China, why does the Lew Rockwell site seem to be so hostile to Taiwanese and Tibetan independence? I thought they were all for secession, all the time, especially considering that the bulk of China is still communist and its government basically a dictatorship.
Published: July 22, 2006 6:46 PM
I've been ill of late, so haven't kept up.
What in God's name are the Federal government doing? America is in a real mess, and must sort out it's house before it end up with troops in London spreading democracy. Can anyone here imagine the Chinese government arresting anyone like this? Or the Russkies?
Published: June 29, 2007 6:16 PM