Exactly what I was thinking… This sounds very much like:
“HAI PARLIAMENT! WHILE IT’S TRUE I HAVE VEEEEERY INCRIMINATING INFO ON MY LAPTOP (THAT JUST HAPPENS TO BE SITTING IN MY HOTEL ROOM NEARBY) I COULDN’T POOOOSSIBLY SHARE IT WITH YOU WITHOUT RUNNING INTO LEGAL TROUBLE…UNLESS! UNLESS!!! I WERE COMPELLED TO DO SO, SAY BY SOMEONE COMING AROUND AND ‘ARRESTING’ ME AND CONFISCATING SAID LAPTOP. BUT WHOOOO WOULD HAVE THE TEMERITY TO DO SUCH A THING?”
Presumably, he didn’t. The evidence didn’t incriminate him or his company.
Unless it opens him up to prosecution in the US. And it’s clear he thought it might when he refused to appear and had to be escorted by the sergeant-at-arms.
I really don’t think US courts have any jurisdiction to punish him for having his computer confiscated by a national government. These are not state secrets. And it is pretty hubristic of a US court to get all huffy about the documents being “sealed”. If the court has legal reason to see them and use them in a court case, there is no reason why a national government might also have legal justification and need to see the same documents.
I read this in the voice of Vincent Price. Bravo!
Firstly, this is Teresa May we’re talking about, previously the Home Secretary who pushed age verification for porn sites (which looks set to enter law) and came up with all sorts of ideas on extending the child porn blocking lists we already had into copyright protection as well. That’s all the credentials she needs for any threat she makes to block Facebook 100% legit. She’d do it. She’s actually that out of touch.
Secondly, our government is already “the bad guys”, they have nothing more to lose by blocking Facebook and may instead actually gain some traction if they show they’re willing to be tough on privacy invasion and data theft (even though they’re busy doing it quietly behind the scenes) so I have no doubt Facebook getting blocked is absolutely a possibility. It may be a crazy thought, but these are crazy times.
If it was Kramer that’s some three dimensional chess there. No reasonable person would ever expect parliament to dispatch the sergeant-at-arms to drag them to parliament and force them to give over documents on pain of prison. On top of that, the threat of fine or prison doesn’t get Kramer out of any of the legal trouble for handing over the documents. The California judge who put the records under seal may consider the circumstances when they decide how to react, but just as the UK didn’t show any deference at all to US law when they did this, the US judge may show absolutely no deference to UK law.
This was not a good spot to be in, and I’d find it weird Kramer put himself in it.
This actually makes me think a bit of another post this morning:
Civil servants working for the committee investigating facebook could easily be looking at lawsuits against facebook, could have identified Kramer as someone who would have dirt, could have found out about the planned trip to the UK by looking at his Facebook page (wouldn’t that be ironic).
As for Kramer having the documents on his laptop, I think that’s just a better-than-even bet.
I saw “CEO” next to Kramer’s name. I assume CEOs knows better than the people who would tell them they should know better.
Lawmakers from nine countries grilled Facebook executive, Richard Allan, on Tuesday as part of an international hearing at Britain’s parliament on disinformation and “fake news.” Facebook’s vice president for policy solutions, answered questions in place of his boss, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who ignored repeated requests to appear.
Hey, come on! It’s hard for him to travel far from Uncanny Valley.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
