cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/24014988
This summer Kimberly Prost, a Canadian judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC), arrived at her home in The Hague and, as was her habit, called out “Alexa”.
There was silence. The voice-activated assistant did not respond. “Alexa was dead. She wouldn’t talk to me,” Prost recalled in an interview with The Irish Times.
Prost had been added to the United States’ sanctions list, because in 2020 she ruled to authorise an investigation into possible atrocities in Afghanistan, including by US troops. Amazon, obliged to implement the sanctions as a US company, had cancelled her account.
It was just the start of what Prost describes as a “pervasive, negative effect” of the sanctions across all aspects of her life, which has shut her out from much of the international banking system.
…
“The purpose is clear. They have said, basically, we’re imposing these sanctions because of decisions you’ve taken in your role as a judge. So effectively, they are interfering directly with the independence of a judge,” Prost said.
“I can’t think of any other way to describe it but an attack on the independence of the judiciary and the International Criminal Court’s independence as an institution, which is why I’m so interested in the public hearing this.”
People and countries have to stop respecting US sanctions. Unfortunately it’s not time yet but we’re getting there I think.
I’m a security engineer and I can personally confirm that trump has personally done more to advance tech in Europe that any other leader.
There is currently a “Sovereign cloud” arms race in European tech where governments are rushing to migrate out of US based solutions in favor for their own if possible and other European countries if otherwise.
It’s been great for the industry and for the end users. I’m in the US myself, but even I am benefiting because more competition = more options and now I can have services where that orange fuck we have to call president doesn’t have a say or access to my data.
We need more payment systems and IT systems that are not run by US companies, among other things.
payment system: GNU Taler
but adoption is really, really slow
Wero
FASTER!
The sooner you disrespect us (U.S.) the sooner the dumb people HERE will catch on.
Keep it up, PLEASE.
A world doesn’t exist where an American company doesn’t enforce American sanctions.The real shame is that she uses Alexa to begin with.
Basically every multinational company is going to enforce American sanctions in fears of having the American market close or being sanctioned itself.
Unfortunately. We just had left wing orgs debanked because the US put antifa on their terror list. Like what the flying fuck? Never in my life have I witnessed such bullshit.
Yea, I mean, silver linings, it sounds like the trash took itself out.
It’s been time to react for decades, but people and politicians are so stupid they didn’t because USA is our “ally”, but if they really were our ally, they wouldn’t pull shit like this. They also wouldn’t make illegal surveillance in and against allied countries, with the purpose of influencing or countering politicians from allied countries, circumventing the democratic process of said countries.
USA is an enemy of democracy, and has been for decades.