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HavenCo Doing Well
davecl writes: "The off-shore datahaven, HavenCo, is doing well, according to the BBC.
HavenCo is based on a WW2 gunnery platform several miles of the English coast. In the 60s it was outside the 3 mile territorial waters, and a retired Army officer moved there and proclaimed it the independent state of Sealand. In the 80s territorial waters were extended to 12 miles. Sealand's nation status is this unclear, but this hasn't stopped HavenCo setting up their data haven. Customers are largely gambling sites, but an increasing number of political groups, such as the Tibetan Government in Exile, are based there in an effort to escape government censorship. More regulation of the web means more customers, and business is booming. Wonder if others will see this as a way of making money out of beating censorship?" We've mentioned Sealand several times before -- it's great to hear they're defying the skeptics.
"Without doubt, they are a sovereign nation (check the history of Sealand if you don't believe me)."
You are not a sovereign nation just because you say so. The only way you can get nation status is if you are officially recognized by other nations. Period. This has been proven in history time and again, and labelling a period of history either as a "revolution" or a "civil war" hinges on this one fact.
Sealand isn't listed in the CIA World Factbook. As far as I'm concerned they are not a sovereign nation. And in this day and age if the US says you're not a country, you're up a creek without a flag. Just ask Ravalomanana when he really became the president of Madagascar.
"Yes, the SAS could raid them, but that would effectively mean that the UK had declared war on another nation."
It would only be seen that way by any countries that have decided to see Sealand as a sovereign nation. And who is that? Anyone? Not the US, not the EU, not the UN, not anybody that has much more than a Red Ryder BB gun.
It's just like when the US "invaded the Confederate States of America." The powers of Europe never saw the CSA as an independent nation, so the entire civil war (as opposed to a revolution) was seen as an internal matter by the rest of the world.
So you go ahead and keep believing that it's a sovereign nation. And you can be as outraged as you want once the place gets shut down. It's not going to change the fact that 99.9% of the world sees it as an internal affair of the British and it certainly won't change the fact that Sealand will be shut down just the same.