As I mentioned yesterday, Vice President J. D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference was highly disturbing to the assembled European ministers – not because Vance told them anything they didn’t already know, but because that speech was destined to be internationally famous. In European politics, there are “unspeakable truths:” things generally known but the discussion of which is deemed too dangerous for the Establishment to tolerate. Of course, that’s true in America as well, but for the moment we don’t have government-enforced censorship.
But the United Kingdom does – and the clammy hand of Britain’s censors is straining to reach across the Atlantic:
The UK has declared that it will charge and prosecute Americans for their social media posts, written while still in America, if they travel to its borders. The ACLJ has prepared a legal memo detailing the specific laws at play and the danger for Americans. Specifically, it details how your speech on the internet could violate the UK’s broad “hate speech” laws and how you could be arrested as soon as you step foot in the UK for your posts back home.
You think that’s bad? It gets worse:
But beyond policing their own citizens, some leaders in the UK have toyed with the idea of extradition – bringing individuals from the U.S. to the UK for “criminal” online activity in violation of these hate speech laws. This is absurd. While Americans could raise First Amendment defenses against extradition attempts and the U.S. State Department maintains final discretion over extradition decisions, the mere threat of prosecution and even the attempt at extradition could create a chilling effect on protected speech.
Threats of such extradition have already been leveled at Elon Musk. No, he hasn’t been extradited to the UK. Even so, that a nation with a “special relationship” to the United States could level such a threat at an American citizen should arouse a lot more than unease. Musk’s prominence doesn’t change the gravity of the matter; it just means more column-inches.
Numerous individuals, including some “in authority,” will assure you that “it could never happen.” Before we accept such assurances, those making them should face a question: “Do American intelligence agencies acquire surveillance data on Americans in America from the intelligence services of the United Kingdom?” Federal law prohibits American intelligence services performing surveillance on Americans in America. Yet it’s recently come to light that the CIA and NSA know one hell of a lot about the domestic comings, goings, and communications of American citizens. Whence did that information originate?
I know, I know: “Here he goes with the ‘whence’ crap again.” But the question is a serious one: If surveillance can be transnationalized, why not censorship? Why would we assume that a future U.S. Administration – one less than scrupulous about Americans’ Constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression – would automatically reject such an extradition demand? That “special relationship” requires maintenance, don’t y’know. Britain, the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” where so many American warplanes are stationed, isn’t required to host our forces. We might have to buy that privilege someday. Not all presidents would regard the sacrifice of a few American troublemakers as an unthinkable price!
Thoughts, Gentle Readers?
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I seem to recall when we had one or two little dust-ups over our right to tell the government of the UK to auto-copulate, and we won. Now they pass a few laws and suddenly we’re under their legal jurisdiction again?
Molon Labe, King Chuck. July 4th may have a firm place on the American calendar, but I also note that there are LOTS of empty days on that calendar…
Death to Britain. I look forward to the day where your new Englishmen decide to behead you pussified cucks.
Applause.
An off-topic question for the esteemed host and gallery — since when has the expression “step foot” taken over from “set foot”? Is “step foot” an old expression which I had simply never noticed before?
I have to confess, this situation had never occurred to me.
From what I assumed the first amendment meant, within the USA, the principle was absolute. No foreign power could be permitted to censor us, nor could our own country cooperate with an extradition that would permit them to remove us to be tried for speech offenses.
I’ve likely underestimated the perfidy of The Left.
There would need to be an extradition treaty. The constitution bans treaties that contradict our constitution. It is the reasons so many “agreements” never became treaties. As the Deep State gets cleaned out, many such agreements will be subject to review.
As you say, we are at the mercy of future administrations. But, more importantly, at the mercy of electoral politics and the machinations of those who don’t like legitimate outcomes.,