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Comment by cloudjacker | Hacker News Reader

> Cisco’s attempt to try to leverage the Wassenaar discussions into legal immunity for itself is unfounded and should fail.

More like attempts to get a civil penalty in the United States for business in another country should fail

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The US is entitled to use its leverage to effect cultural change abroad. One way we do that is combat foreign corruption by holding American companies accountable when they engage in fraud abroad. We also hold Americans who participate in sex with minors in foreign countries accountable. This is in the same vein.

Why not? Seems like there is lots of precedent for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Tort_Statute

Also, do you think it matters that one of the plaintiffs is a US citizen?

Yes.

As a US citizen, you can be held responsible for violating certain US laws outside the United States. Why would this be different?

Really depends on who your employer is.

You're not wrong, Walter...

Indeed. This is just a business selling a product someone wanted. Cisco is a multinational company; it makes no more sense to hold them to US law for products sold in China then to hold a Chinese company to US law for products sold in China.

You can say the exact same thing about bribing overseas officials, and yet we have the FCPA.

It's been said better up at the top now, but my point was exactly that: if we want to prevent this specific scenario, we need a law that says "company that does business in the US must not do Y", rather than saying "Y is illegal here, so lets sue company that does business in the US for doing Y elsewhere."

and yet, I feel the same way about the FCPA

bring it up when I run for office

I don't understand the objection. It's not like you suddenly lose all benefits and protections of US citizenship when you step over the border. If you don't want to follow these laws, move your company and renounce your citizenship. If you're not willing to do that then you need to follow the rules.

If you would like to talk about the FCPA, I never mentioned my objection.

The objection is that it undermines competitiveness in corrupt business environments. Business environments that are inherently corrupt whether the US entity participates or not. Kickbacks are a way of doing business in many jurisdictions, and then the US government levies a charge against you that is solved with: YOU GUESSED IT, ANOTHER KICKBACK. But its okay because the SEC and DOJ call it a settlement.

A totally unnecessary law that is enforced at the discretion of the administration.

I understand your point about lawsuit settlements being useless and hypocritical, but your main point about competitiveness is obviously not really relevant. There are tons of laws that undermine US business competitiveness in global markets. There are tons of laws that undermine domestic competitiveness too, that's just how our society is set up. Profit is not our first priority.

Anyway, when I referred to your "objection", it seemed like you were saying any laws affecting business outside the country are pointless and wrong. I don't think I know enough about the FCPA to discuss it specifically.

Why doesn't it make sense? Cisco is an American multinational company. If you don't want to abide by American laws, don't base your company in America. I don't think laws should apply to actions abroad by default, but we have laws specifically written for these scenarios.

US citizens can be prosecuted for some serious crimes committed abroad. It doesn't make sense to treat companies differently.

We have laws against bribing foreigners, no matter if that can be made to look legal-ish in a foreign country because that practice can lead to corruption of a US company.

Unfortunately, the government is a hypocrite in this case, by treating its own mass surveillance as legal.

I'm really tired of "business" being used as an excuse for oppression and torture.

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