Given Cisco's reliance on support contracts this would mean a huge hit to their profits, as well as giving competitors a lowered barrier to entry for government and midsize to large business in that state.
Be assured, however, that the thin blue line will continue to protect them just as much as Cisco will protect its executives.
I can only hope that the lawyers involved are disbarred for life, and (in the case of American lawyers operating in Canada), charged with a crime and prevented from entering the country again (without facing prosecution).
No. A coalition of execs conducted a violent kidnapping in broad daylight to make a political statement. It would not be out of line to whack one of them in front of their family. Tit-for-tat ain't just for game theory papers. Illegality isn't much of an argument, since by corrupting the process of law they have placed themselves outside it.
We can reasonably consider even more than that. The execs corrupted many levels of government, but were so inept that the government itself caught them at it. The Feds don't quite use Roman penalties for corruption (crucifixion), but they are harsh and unforgiving. Even a $100 bribe can get you sent to prison for years.
The simple fact is the Cisco conducted a Russian mob-style kidnapping, to send a political message to the victim and his family. It would easily have turned into a full on mob hit if the victim had put a hand in his pocket and it had been "misinterpreted".
And how is Cisco's next victim to seek redress? Certainly not by crossing a border: they own customs and immigration. Certainly not by working with a foreign court: Cisco's armed agents travel freely anywhere and do as they please. Certainly not by making a complaint to the FBI: who will just turn the complaint over to prosecutors who are Cisco's tame lapdogs.
This is not lost on their prospective victims. With cooperation off the table, they know the choice is to submit or strike first. It is a statistical certainty that one of their prospective victims will choose to strike. It is also a certainty that, given the opaque nature of Cisco's management, that the strike will be broadly targeted. This sort of game-theoretic logic is exactly why corporate disputes in Moscow are so often resolved by bombings.
Cisco has sown the wind, and will reap the whirlwind if they do not clean up their act.
Re-reading this, I'm now convinced you're trolling. Regardless of whatever inappropriate influence Cisco may have exerted on US authorities, it was the RCMP that arrested Adekeye, and it appears to have been done in a very polite manner.
I'm thankful that I live in a country where this isn't true, and even people accused of crimes still have the full protection of the law until proven guilty. Even if the crime they are accused of is lying to the police.
Arguing for lynch mob vengeance shows you are completely inept at managing your feelings of righteous anger, potentially sociopathic in your inability to empathize, unconcerned with accuracy or the case of false positives, and just as lame-brained as every single idiot that hit a car in the Vancouver riots.
Furthermore, you should also know that Axelrod's tit-for-tat game theory strategy wins in iterative situations that continue past the first reaction and also relies on forgiveness.
And you would, validly, be deserving of the same retaliation by any children of the exec ...
And how would they do that, given that a rational actor would use difficult-to-trace asymmetrical warfare techniques?
... unconcerned with accuracy or the case of false positives ...
Collateral damage is one of the main considerations of the rational opponent theory. His rational counterparts in Cisco will understand that the corporate sovereign strategy has a ghastly risk of blowback and therefore act to stop it. Very few VPs are willing to be gunned down in front of their grandkids so that some dickhead in legal can get a bonus. Likewise for the neighbors, the company that supplies electricity to the corporate headquarters, the banks that settle their financial transactions, the garbage men, and so on. Nobody wants to be on the Death Star unless it is certified rebel proof.
... just as lame-brained as every single idiot that hit a car in the Vancouver riots.
Random violence is illegitimate, a synonym for saying it does not work. It has to be tit-for-tat. Talking about bombing some deli does not keep corporate states in line. What does work is talking about an exec's kids coming home from school to find daddy hanged from the ceiling by his own guts. And if talking does not do the trick, they will eventually victimize someone who strikes back.
Ok, Stalin / Kaczynski.
This is true, even if unpalatable. It's mob justice, and it's because there aren't mob courts. If there aren't people's courts, or courts providing justice for the people, this will become the people's justice. The phrase "What does work" should suggest to you that it is becoming the common perception, if not fact, that the system does not "work".
The way to fix this is to, VERY severely, punish all those involved in corrupting the proper functioning of the law. You know how severely you'd be punished if you tried to bribe your way out of a drunk hit-and-run slaying of a cop? Certainly it'd occupy at least the next decade or so of your life. Like that, but more, and to the corporation itself as well.
Otherwise the victims, seeing only ruin via the system, will seek their own solutions. I'd like a better system which means identifying why this one doesn't work instead of just hearing happy platitudes while we end up like Russia.
If you want true "ends justify the means" style government, you'll actually want something a bit more like Russia, possibly Tito era Yugoslavia.
Just because I think the most responsible person shouldn't be assassinated in front of his children doesn't mean I didn't get angry at the idea of an arrogant Cisco overstepping its bounds and a DOJ all too happy to play lapdog.
Yes. That's why I want strong and definitive legitimate punishment. Because otherwise that's all we have left and as you say, it can get messy.
> Just because I think the most responsible person shouldn't be assassinated in front of his children doesn't mean I didn't get angry at the idea of an arrogant Cisco overstepping its bounds
That is a little harsh. Maybe... They did try to get this guy a lifelong prison sentence, and that is a bit like death.
Hauled away and chucked in jail for as long as they intended to jail their victim though, that I want their kids to see. That might teach them something valuable - that their parents obviously missed while growing up.
I think this will be the most brilliant thing I read today
/s
The fact is that Cisco appears now to exist outside – above? – the law. I don't have a good, clean answer for how you deal with that. Bloodshed doesn't seem the right answer but it's not like you can trust a civil action to go anywhere when the puppet master has his hand so far up the assholes of so many bureaucrats.
Tell that to the guy who was legally fucked over for a year. At least in the third world, corruption is acknowledged. Here, despite three pages of detail, you maintain a belief that the same legal mechanisms that allowed this guy to be nearly disappeared will also bring the appropriate wrongdoers to justice.
That strikes me as a little unrealistic. So while I don't agree with murder as a remedy here, I can sympathize with the sense of defeat that inspires it.
That sounds neat for you.
But I don't think that, after reading a story like this one, it's even remotely out of line for others to have such faith escape them. It's hardly a productive discussion, but I'm intrigued by the notion that you can see the system utterly compromised yet still trust it to function. In the end, I'm in the uncomfortable position of finding your view to be as much or more preposterous as the bloodthirsty parent we're responding to.
Put another way: I'm not okay starting the dinner course of a meal in a restaurant that just served me an appetizer including a garnish of rodent droppings.
"As the case moved through the courts, Adekeye attempted to return to America to participate. He was denied entry. He tried unsuccessfully for months to get back into the US but was continually refused."
There's Customs and Immigration compromised.
"'The US Secret Service issued a criminal complaint after nearly two years of investigation alleging that Mr. Adekeye violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 97 distinct instances, and as a result a federal judge signed an arrest warrant for Mr. Adekeye...'"
There's Treasury.
"The authorities sprang into action, calling the Canadian government and urging it to use extraordinary powers to arrest Adekeye. Within hours, federal prosecutors were before British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask seeking a warrant, painting their dire picture of a nefarious suspect and conjuring a burning sense of urgency. But Canada had been duped."
Don't you need the State Department for something like that?
This strikes me as a clear-cut case of "I have a shitload of money, be a good government and do as I say."
Boy. That fills me with so much faith in the legal system. ;)
As an aside, my original comment has sparked quite a large discussion, for having so many downvotes.
In this case, if the powers-that-be were as powerful as you claim, we wouldn't even be having this conversation; Peter Adekeye would not be free and back with his family considering legal action, the Canadian judge would not be lambasting the US and Canadian prosecutors who were involved, etc. etc..
Am I just another sucker for the troll, though? This seems obvious, which means it's probably boring for most readers.
Sorry if you don't find it interesting. Especially sorry if you perceive everything you don't like/care about as a troll.