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Sealand Put Up For Sale
antic writes "The Principality of Sealand is up for sale. The 550 square meter steel platform boasts "uninterrupted sea views", complete privacy and has been mentioned on Slashdot in the past for its offers of hosting outside the jurisdiction of (some) traditional laws."
It's not actually for sale, the owners are just offering a tenancy. Which makes it not such a sweet deal.
Sealand exists because in 1967, Britian's territorial waters extended only 3 miles out from the shore.
Therefore, they could legitimately claim the fort as theirs. If they had tried to do that after 1987... it wouldn't have worked, because the 3-mile limit was changed to 12 miles.
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Sealand is a bit of a running joke for the people of Harwich. I would contest their "uninterrupted sea views" as I'm fairly sure that the very brightly coloured (luminous yellow!) Hotel Continental situated on the cliffs of Harwich can be seen from it, hell... they can probably see it from Holland! It's also probably quite fire damaged at the moment having suffered a fire http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/5110244.stm last year, and not having its own fire brigade or hospital services had to make use of the British ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Sealand_fortres s.jpg
More like "Seaplatform". though it doesn't have that ring to it.
If anyone is interested in it, move along. Not only is it in the middle of nowhere, you face invasion by several post - industrialized nations. You're better off buying an island in the keys. At least then you're lucky to have something called coconuts and White Sandy beaches.
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The last time they were "invaded" by armed people, they retook the platform with force and held the "invaders" hostage. They've also in the past shot the the British navy... So I do suspect you might need to be armed with a bit more than beer and a hamburger.
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Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Nitpick: embassies are not the territory of the foreign country. They are under the jurisdiction of the foreign country. So embassies in the United States are still United States territory, but they are under foreign jurisdiction, not the jurisdiction of the United States.
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If you're spending eight digits on your boat, you can afford to spend a couple million bucks to buy some SS-N-25 and P-800 surplus russian anti-ship missiles. Anything that's not an aircraft carrier battlegroup will be toast, and even some of those won't want to engage you without significant air support.
And the second that a US Navy vessel tells you to stand down and be boarded, and you refuse, and they shoot at you, and you fire back with missiles and try to sink their ship, what the fuck do you think is going to happen? They'll laugh and wander off? You'd be lucky to make off your ship alive.
And I don't know why 'pirate' would make you laugh. They kill people, you know. Navies are allowed to board anyone they suspect of piracy, and operating without a flag is a pretty strong indicator. And in international waters ships without a flag are subject to the jurisdiction of all nations, and thus any vessel operated by any country can demand they allow themselves to be boarded under suspicion of being a pirate vessel, and fire on them if they refuse.
That actually isn't just some hypothetical situation. Navies actually do board unflagged ships whenever they find them in international waters or their own waters. (And they alert the host country when they find them suspicious in other people's waters.)
If you're an innocent person in a boat that wasn't intended for international trips, but drifted, you'll usually be fine, and they'll even tow you back to shore. If you refuse to stand down and be boarded, they will attempt to board by force, period. If you attempt to stop them, they will shoot back. You might be able to hold them off, but they will send their military. And, hell, even if you can defeat their entire military, they'll just alert other navies where you are. Navies board and search suspected pirate ships on general principles, you can't just fire at them and they go 'Well, that seems a bit hard, let's just give up'.
Plus, have fun finding a port that will take a ship without a flag when you need to get repairs.
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