Out of Pod Experience

I'm liking them icylanders more and more

FBI is allowed to do investigations on foreign soil?, i thought they where just allowed to work in the US..

Merica, other countries laws don't apply. don't exist.

Nope. 'Cause we have important defense installations in Iceland. Can't jeopardize that... FBI gets to suck its thumb and sulk.


Not entirely so - FBI is allowed to go where their investigations lead, so long as they're investigating a crime against the US or which took place in the US (they sometime investigate crimes against other countries which were conducted in US territory) and they obtain the necessary local permissions.

Seems like some Agent-in-Charge failed to cross all 'I"s and dot all "T"s.
Ooops!

I think they may be used to not having to ask permission of 'friendly' countries, even if they're technically supposed to. They just announce they've arrived like they did here and that's usually enough.

They may have also not wanted to give any warning before they arrived so the people being investigated couldn't prepare.

You're from the FBI?, look how many fecks we give.

Given that a fair number of US embassies have FBI attached as "legal attaches" in order to help clear up any US Citizen legal issues with that country, FBI agents abroad isn't unusual.

A bunch managing to so publicly screw up their paperwork, though, is. The FBI is usually on top of properly filling out their paperwork.

I'm thinking that there were political "issues" here; to get a FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge (SAC) to screw the pooch like that (especially in a country like Iceland, where it's well-known the local media will quickly pick up and spread the screw-up), either the SAC was a complete incompetent (fairly rare, and the US Justice Departmen usually doesn't let them out of the country for fear of diplomatic incidents) or someone higher up the SAC's "food chain" gave firm orders to violate protocol (not to mention international treaties, several USG regulations, and a couple US laws) in order to "make it happen".

What a bunch of idiots.

A) The US State Department exists for a reason. Their actual diplomatic personnel (as opposed to the support staff, like the tech experts and security specialists) may (mostly) be very liberal, "left-wing", Ivy-League Sunni-lovers (or at least usually perceived that way)...but they're fairly competent at their jobs. There is a reason Sovereign Nations have diplomats. Use them. When choosing to pursue your interest "legally" with an "allied/friendly" nation, "Better to ask foregiveness than permission" is not the way to go. Apparently someone in the FBI forgot this. The FBI follow the rules.

B) If you want to be all "sneaky" and say "screw the rules" as a nation...well, that's why the five Pemanent Members of the UN Security Council each have fairly large, relatively well-funded covert/clandestine intelligence/security agencies. You want someone to sneak into a "friendly" and talk to people? Call a spy (well, their supervising intelligence agency). Most FBI agents (most US Federal Law Enforcement agents, actually) don't do either "sneak" or "subtle" worth a damn. Spies usually do.

C) If WikiLeaks is such a big "threat to US national security", than treat it like a threat to US national security. Do you see too much about China, Pakistan or even Russia of the sort of stuff you see about the US? No. Why? Because WikiLeaks manages to do that to China (major leak of seriously-damaging internal paperwork), WikiLeaks would not be long for this world. Servers would start being destroyed, cyberwarfare would start killing any and all attempts to host any form of the site, and the people actually behind WikiLeaks would start turning up dead. (Whether "accidental" or blatantly assassinated is a moot point.) This is because China, succintly, "doesn't play". Do I agree with such a policy, personally? Almost never. (There is always an exception; WikiLeaks is not one of them.) But the US (thankfully) "plays by the rules".

Bottom line, the US Government needs to figure out what it's doing versus WikiLeaks, set out a formal (written) policy, and then follow it. Granted, the chances of this happening--given some of the recurrent flaws of the last two to three US 'Administrations' in the fields of defense, security, and law--are not likely. Given the usual (decent) level of competence from most US agencies if left alone with a clear goal, consistent funding, and without political meddling (like most similiar agencies in functional governments the world over), if the elected idiots would just set a goal and let their "minions" do their jobs, they would get results, more than likely. But US politicians can't seem to understand that anymore.

Expect to see yet more unwarranted arrogance and "diplo-FAIL!" in related to WikiLeaks. I just wander who'll the USG will **** off (or **** off further) next? UK? France? Iceland so badly that all US passport holders are closely scrutinized? Israel...wait, they already hate the US. Germany? Mexico? Canada? Bahrain? Qatar? Kuwait? Australia? Who knows where it will end.

But expect similiar headlines, that is my assessment. Mostly because of political wants overriding legal facts...at least until someone calls them on their bullshit.

We shall introduce democracy to Iceland... then women in Eve will get the right to vote

Just don't give them your banking system, theirs is screwed enough as it is

Plausible.
If so, a serious error.




Categorical yet succinct, and accurate too.
Here, have all my "Likes."