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Eric Schmidt and Entourage Pay a Call On Cuba
VentureBeat reports that the unofficial Google ambassador to the world has made another significant visit to a place where Internet access is either forbidden or impractical for most of the citizenry; hopefully it heralds change on that front. Continuing his tour of countries with authoritarian governments and less-than-favorable Internet access, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt made a secret visit to Cuba yesterday. The U.S. government has forbidden its citizens from traveling to Cuba or spending any money within the country since cold war tensions in the 1960s. Even though the cold war is over, the ban remains in effect, which is why Schmidt’s visit is significant. Unofficially (meaning not on behalf of his company), the powerful Googler has also made controversial visits to North Korea and Myanmar to promote Internet freedom, and has previously spoken out against online censorship happening in both China and India.
Schmidt, says the article, "was joined by a crew of former Google employees as well as author Jared Cohen."
So what are the legal consequences for this?
Personally I'd like to visit Cuba but haven't, in part due to the illegality.
It is NOT impossible to LEGALLY visit Cuba. My friend did it in a study abroad program during college in the US. That said, they don't make it easy.
We go there for vacation whenever the fuck we want. Americans need to get fucking clue and get over themselves. It's just fucking Cuba. No big deal. America has relations with China, and they've executed WAY more political prisoners than Cuba has, and you;re probably reading this on a Chinese built computer. So bag the anti-communist BS and grow up.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Restrictions are on commerce not travel.
You can go there as long as you don't spend any money.
Funny how they act that Cuba is soo taboo. Personally I been to Cuba 8 times already. Nicest beaches i have ever seen, and everything is pretty cheap there (except Havana), relatively safe and nice people. Also met a few Americans going through Canada.
All Americans can travel to Cuba.
There are constraints and restrictions, but they're mostly bureaucratic and pretty much trivial.
-Styopa
Good luck with that. Maybe they'll turn a few of their '57 Chevys into mobile hot spots.
Cuban rights abuses, jailings up in new repressive wave
The Lost World, Part I
The Lost World, Part II
Condom shortage hits Cuba
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
In a fit of self promotion and unmitigated ego, Mr Schmidt somehow thinks that world dictators give a Xx&$ about Google. "Yeah, I ruthlessly exploited my people and pointedly ignored world opinion and sanctions - but a nerd from a company that sells internet advertising has shown me the error in my ways because somehow having internet access cures all woes and human suffering".
US - the free country and people living there proud of all that freedom can't travel to this island?
Just be proud, don't read the small print and the world is OK.
Ah - don't forget to hang your flag out the frontyard.
Solves everything.
Sure blame the Floridanos but isn't the problem the agricultural sector?
Stop making fructose and ethanol from government subsidized maize.
Pay Mexican farmers a decent price for corn and you might see less 'illegals' crossing the border. Kickstart the Cuban economy by buying their sugar.
Wrong, wrong, wrong (this used to be true but changed over 10 years ago, see 31 CFR 515.420).
There is so much bad legal advice in these comments, I would exceed Slashdot's posting limit if I tried to correct it all. I sincerely hope that nobody gets legal information from Slashdot threads.
[The Cuban Democracy Act was signed into law in 1992 with the stated purpose of maintaining sanctions on Cuba so long as the Cuban government continues to refuse to move toward "democratization and greater respect for human rights"] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Vietnam war with napalm was very respecful of HR, also the invasion of Irak because of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the NSA being a "big brother" seems very democratic too. My point here is the cinical atitude from the US government towards Cuba or to the rest of the world I should say.
He is rich and powerful, what are you expecting?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Is the article about an American visiting Cuba or about a multi-billionaire promoting expanding the internet in countries that spend significant amounts of their GDP spying on their own citizens?
Is Schmidt basically telling Cuba, North Korea, et al that he can cut their local spying costs by getting everyone to "speak their mind" online and then recording every word to be used for disrupting opponents and intimidating effective political activists in the same way that the NSA and FBI do? I can see the North Korean and Burmese regime being even less subtle than the CIA in this respect: Rendition and torture en masse at bargain basement prices. What despotic dictator could refuse such a generous offer?
If there's a god, Raul Castro will announce on Monday that within 5 years, 80% of the Havana metro area will have gigabit fiber to the premises. The announcement will drive our elected officials in South Florida mad, and they'll quickly decide that getting TEN-gigabit municipal FTTP laid across Dade & Broward counties is their #1 priority...
I think reaching out to Cuba would do much more good than publicly worrying about its dissidents and freedoms.
It all lacks sincerity, especially after Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Sarah Harrison.
Co-development, sincere equal cooperation would do a lot of good to Cuba and to the USA itself. There are a lot of people and business in the USA who need assistance not less than people and companies in Cuba.
That's very interesting that they visited Cuba because the penalty for a US citizen travelling to Cuba is an administrative penalty of $50,000 with no judicial oversight. That means you get fined and there is no possibility of appeal. Internet access costs about £5 / hour in Cuba and something about £50-70 / month so its only really available in internet cafes.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
At least Cuban communism, while not perfect, is generally run vaguely in the interests of the people.
The United States is deeply undemocratic in comparison to Cuba (no chance of ever removing the democrat/republican corporate shill party), and of course, the United States has much lower standards of healthcare [look at WHO figures for infant mortality] and education [everyone knows the US system is a joke].
Cuba has done well, considering it has been under a regime of economic terrorism, for its totalitarian neighbour, the United States.
"Continuing his tour of countries with authoritarian governments"
Next stop, Russia?
Any efforts to help this gentleman?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Phillip_Gross
Let's get this clear - it's not illegal for Americans to travel to Cuba. Not at all.
Got that? Good. Now what is illegal, thanks to President Kennedy, is for Americans to spend money there without prior authorization from the US Department of Treasury. This is how the US government "gets" people who go to Cuba without permission. See, Kennedy signed the order during the Cold War and to prevent the Communists from arguing that the US was repressive and taking away the freedom of its citizens to go to Cuba, Kennedy simply made it illegal to spend money there unless you got special authorization to do so. Very rarely are US citizens truly forbidden from traveling anyway. I think in the past there may have been a few places where we actually legally couldn't travel to, but I'm not sure if any exist any more. I suppose it's worth mentioning that generally it's only when a Republican is president that the US government gets interested in prosecuting citizens for spending money in Cuba without prior authorization. This has not been a high priority of the Clinton or Obama presidencies.
Granted the bit about being able to travel to Cuba legally but not able to spend money there without prior authorization is a fine line and essentially the legal cases against such travelers have involved the US government arguing (probably without proof) that the traveler couldn't go there and not spend money. It's all a crock. It's not well known but my understanding (I have no personal experience here) is that the Obama administration has made it much easier for US citizens to go to Cuba legally via authorized cultural travel groups so there's not really a reason to just skirt the law and go without permission. The Bush administration had much tighter restrictions on travel to Cuba and a history of prosecuting citizens who got caught going there without prior authorization.
"Now what is illegal, thanks to President Kennedy, is for Americans to spend money there without prior authorization from the US Department of Treasury"
Does buying your all inclusive vacation package in Canada count as spending money there?
They mean visited? What a crappy headline, makes my head spin.
You've all got it wrong. The REAL conspiracy is that if the embargo were lifted, Cuba could field a Major League Baseball team. If they fielded a team made up exclusively by Cuban and Latin American players, they would completely dominate the sport. The Major League Sport Hegemony couldn't allow such an embarrassment! (tongue on partially in cheek)
"Just as there is nothing so unreal as reality TV, there is nothing as unsocial as social media." - Alistair Dabbs
Nope and no help for jailed Americans in NK, or the locals in their death camps for that matter. What they really need is more Internet freedoms.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Tastes like a regular Cuban cigar, but the smoke forms a screen to project a 4K image. Like Google Glass for cigar smokers. Eric never stops forging ahead.