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1. You would not be allowed to take such documents on a random business trip to the UK. You are required to protect and treat them as confidential. If you we
by DannyBee 8y ago
1. You would not be allowed to take such documents on a random business trip to the UK. You are required to protect and treat them as confidential.
If you were going to expose them to legal counsel in the UK for some reason, you would have had to seek the court's permission, etc.
2. The reason to assume is it because the story essentially implies it.
They didn't stop the guy and confiscate the stuff he had, they ordered him to produce them. If he had them with them, they wouldn't have to order him to do that. They would just escort him to his hotel room and take them :)
3. The story is also wrong about contempt, etc, at least on the set of facts they present.
The correct answer is to say "I am a citizen of the US, i am not the legal holder or custodian of these documents, i would like to speak to my embassy immediately". Let it be fought over in court.
Especially given our president, he would have made a big scene over the UK doing this to a US citizen, minimum.
Six4three LLC is a US company, its founder, ted kramer, is, as far as i can tell from court docs, a us citizen. They are not represented by an UK law firm.
(FWIW: all of this is why i suspect this was secret deal by six4three done to embarrass facebook)
- detaro 8y agothanks for the detailed answer!
- bobloblaw2 8y agoI was also thinking the same thing about the "secret deal" thing since 643 had previously fought Facebook in court and there might be some bad blood there. But the guy is a US citizen so it'd be very risky to intentionally pull a stunt like that when a US court ordered him to keep the documents sealed. I agree it seems this was a pretty major incident and people are letting their hatred of Zuckerberg blind them to it. In essence the 643 guy was threatened with UK jail if he didn't produce the documents. And threatened with US jail if he did. Over something that he did not own or had any part in creating. I'm no expert but it seems like a rights violation. He didn't do anything illegal. Do embassies really step in in this case? If not, what would be the correct process to untangle oneself.
- DannyBee 8y agoYeah. If you are being threatened with legal process in a foreign country, step #1 is always "contact your embassy". This is actually one of the main reasons they exist. If they let you, your embassy should be helping (at the very least, understand your rights/options, etc. They generally will not provide legal advice but can give you an overview) If they don't let you, then either: 1. What is happening is very very illegal (IE they are not supposed to be detaining you) or 2. You are about to be accused of something so serious they think it's worth creating an incident over. or 3. You are in a banana republic :) Outside of #3, it's valuable to understand where you stand anyway.
- rhizome 8y agoIf you are being threatened with legal process in a foreign country, step #1 is always "contact your embassy". I've always known this to be good advice in a criminal context, but not political ones like this unless to relay that the USG in general should intervene. I have not heard that the guy was detained. I really don't think an embassy has the juice to go up against UK Parliament, the current US Ambassador to the UK is a old-money Republican fundraiser with a history degree, whose most recent accomplishment is owning the New York Jets NFL team. Also, do we know that he didn't contact the embassy?