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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

What laws did they break?

They probably broke some, but I don't know which ones they would be, so it seems plausible to not be sure they broke any laws.

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That's absurd logic. You don't need to know the specific laws to know there are laws. Sneaking into a country is clearly illegal. Sneaking out of a country to break your contract has to be illegal. Sending a person by freight is pretty definitely specifically illegal, and even if it isn't nailing someone up and mailing him has to be breaking some sort of reckless endangerment law.

It’s illegal to cross the border outside of official border crossings, see 8 U.S. Code § 1325 - Improper entry by alien. Of course in this case it seems like the crossing was unintentional, and I’m unsure if the UK has similar laws.

I'm not sure how to track the history of US code, but it looks like that law didn't exist until 2012.

So it sounds like... you are unsure if they broke any laws

Also remember there was no internet in 1965, they couldn’t exactly google for a law.

If I’m reading it correctly, the law you cited only applies to non-citizens of the US, so if a citizen posted themselves to return home they wouldn’t be in violation. This was a case of a UK citizen (attempting) returning to the UK, so the equivalent law wouldn’t apply.

I'm certain there are human trafficking laws that it would have violated.

That's not what human trafficking means.

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