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Comment by nxc18 | Hacker News Reader

Organizations that willfully violate the law, especially in ways that pose threats to the lives and property of others, should be terminated.

The US government granted them incorporation (or some similar status) and all the privileges that came with that. I wish the government would raise the cost of non-compliance by exercising it's right to revoke those privileges.

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I am saddened that this has become acceptable practice in silicon valley.

Look at Uber and all the laws it broke. Sure Travis might be gone but the company stays and some people made a lot of money by breaking laws and exploiting others. For them it paid off and they will do it again.

It is also worth noting that he is only “gone” in the sense of no longer working at the company. His extremely lucrative ownership stake is untouched.

He will be allowed to profit handsomely from all of his illegal activities.

There's a difference between what is legal and what is right and the two don't always overlap.

In the case of Uber, their initial ignoring of the laws protecting Taxis I think was a good thing. Though this doesn't hold true for the things they were later accused of.

Yeah, but they also didn't want others to be able to do what they did.

If they really thought they were right, they would be lobbying to remove those medallion requirements for everyone, themselves and the taxi companies. They didn't.

You can only fight a war on so many fronts, better to just ignore the medallions until you have power. Once you do that the medallions matter less anyway.

If they tried to fight head on legally they likely would have lost (since that's probably where the taxi companies are strongest and incentivized to spend all of their money to win at any cost).

> The US government granted them incorporation

A state government did that, most likely.

I can't imagine this company will ever successfully be able to pull a license after this stunt. What a short sighted move.

Unless they received military assurances. There were a lot of DoD / armed forces mentions in the article...

Edit: And now that I think about it... you'd imagine the minimum tracking size of the US radars would be fairly classified. And likely something not bandied about the FCC in detail.

Yeah. There some irony in the symbolism: this time we have a SV firm that launched satellites that literally move fast [1] and potentially break things (namely, other satellites).

[1] See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16556716

Are you talking about Uber?

Couldn't this company just incorporate in Taiwan or India and keep doing what they are doing without any need for US approval?

They could, and then it would be Taiwan or India's problem.

Until one of their micro satellites hits one from the USA.

... in which case India or Taiwan would on the hook for it, if found out.

If I understand correctly (and that’s a big if given I’m not any kind of lawyer, never mind an international treaty specialist) the country which allowed the launch is responsible for the damages in situations like that. So no, it’s still their problem.

Only if the country has agreed to join that international treaty.

That's a great way to get your satellites "accidentally" hit in retaliation

China is the source of largest amount of space debris (as a result of testing their anti-satellite weapon). How will the US (or any other country ) know the country of origin of the space debris ?

The US (and presumably other countries like Russia and China) has a pretty robust tracking network that keeps track of pretty much everything in orbit above a certain size. With that info and when the strike actually happened it's pretty easy to backtrack to determine the possible culprits.

http://www.stratcom.mil/Media/Factsheets/Factsheet-View/Arti...

The US has famously polluted elliptical orbits and low earth orbit with test garbage for 60 years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/westford.htm

> Couldn't this company just incorporate in Taiwan or India and keep doing what they are doing

No. They would have to move operations abroad and convince a foreign country they’re worth the risk. (American operations of foreign companies are still subject to U.S. law.)

Considering they launched the satellites in India's rocket, I think India would be fine with them.

Not exactly. It's unclear how they were able to launch successfully, but I doubt whatever mistake that occurred is indicative of the Indian government agreeing with the project. It's more likely they used social engineering of some sort to get their satellites on the rocket.

They apparently used a third-party to fit in with the other secondary passengers:

"Paperwork filed with the FCC by Swarm Technologies shows that it was planning to use Spaceflight, a Seattle-based launch services company, to get its satellites on board the PSLV. Spaceflight’s website shows that it did in fact supply 19 of the 31 satellites for January’s PSLV launch, including some with the SpaceBees unique 0.25U dimensions.

"Last year, Spaceflight senior mission manager Adam Hadaller told Spectrum that it checked all its customers’ safety regulations and communication licenses before launch. However, in response to questions this week, Spaceflight would only say: “Spaceflight has never knowingly launched a customer who has been denied an FCC license. It is the responsibility of our customers to secure all FCC licenses.”

"Neither Spaceflight nor ISRO could immediately confirm whether they routinely check launch customers’ FCC licenses. If they do not, there would seem to be little to stop satellite makers from deploying any device they choose into orbit."

If they punitively had their charter revoked and the corporation dissolved by the chartering state, no. A corporation can move, but not after a corporate death sentence is executed.

The employees and officers of the company could obviously set up somewhere else afterwards, but what happens in such a case with the company's assets?

Even in this case. The country from where they launched is fully liable; and the fact whether they can recover the money from the company (i.e. whether it exists or not) is irrelevant. If they didn't prevent the launch and didn't acquire appropriate safeguards or insurance (which would be feasible) it's their problem.

The FCC does appear to be vastly overstepping their bounds here. Nothing in their charter gives them the right to legislate the minimum size of satellites. Can we terminate them as well?

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