It does seem a bit baffling. This method just adds a second potential crime, in the form of fraudulent payments.
You could argue that it's against something like the OECD Anti‑Bribery Convention, but that would be a much more difficult case, given that this isn't a particular foreign official, but essentially a central body of the foreign government.
Just to clarify, not saying that it's ok, but just that accusing it of being a "crime" might be a category error.
It's kind of like how everything can be securities fraud[0]
bloomberg article: https://archive.is/ixwRi
> Yesterday New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood filed a securities-fraud lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. “alleging that the company misled investors regarding the risk that climate change regulations posed to its business.”
Blatant lying
> if you are a public company that suffers a massive data breach and exposes sensitive data about millions of customers without their consent, and that data is then used for nefarious purposes, and you find out about the breach, and then you wait for years to disclose it, and when you do disclose it your stock loses tens of billions of dollars of market value, then shareholders are going to sue you for not telling them earlier
Blatant lying
The fact that most of this lying (see Exxon) is done under some kind of "nudge nudge, wink wink, we all know what's really going in" doesn't stop it from knowingly lying.
That knowingly lying is securities fraud seems very logical, and nothing like "everything".
This is all moot anyway now that the US is no longer interested in upholding any laws against large companies whatsoever.
Blatant lying also?
> Yesterday New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood filed a securities-fraud lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp. “alleging that the company misled investors regarding the risk that climate change regulations posed to its business.”
>Blatant lying
Can you elaborate? Looking at the case it seems pretty clear that Exxon did not lie, especially not in any "blatant" manner.
1. Alerting a country to secret actions taken by a third party government (my nation of citizenship, the US, definitely has rules against that)
2. Passing money to commit a crime. See money laundering.
Honestly, the second crime seems aggravated and stupid. Just pass random digits in an API call if you want to tell Israel you did something.
Other countries provide legal protections for other bits of information because disclosure of that information is considered harmful to the individual, it’s that protection they are trying to breach which thus harms the person.
Same deal as most illegal things public companies do also being SEC violations.
Here we don’t know which specific laws were broken because we lack details, but the companies definitely signed a contract agreeing to commit fraud.
Anyway, the comment I responded to had “require an intention to harm to a victim” it’s that aspect I was addressing. My point was the transmission of information itself can be harmful to someone other than the recipient of that information. So the same act fulfills both aspects of fraud (deception + criminal intent), and also breaks some other law.
There is wide latitude in the criminal code to charge financial crimes. This reminds me a bit of Trump's hush money conviction. IIRC, a central issue was how the payment was categorized in his books. In this case, there would be a record of this payment to Israel in the books, but the true nature of the payment would be concealed. IANAL, but I believe that is legally problematic.
[1] If they actually violated a gag order, which realistically they won't. In all likelihood there's language to ensure they're not forced to commit crimes. Even if that wasn't explicit, the illegality doctrine covers them anyway, and they can just ignore any provisions which would require them to commit crimes.
It can very well be, and it's called obstruction of justice.
Though in this case, the real crime is treason. Those companies collaborate with a foreign government against their own.
Possibly, depending on intent. But even if so, obstruction of justice is not fraud.
> the real crime is treason
This hypothetical crime (which I'd say is highly unlikely to occur) would definitely not be treason, which has a narrow legal definition. We're not at war with Israel.
Sure, but it's a crime still. Not just something neutral.
>This hypothetical crime (which I'd say is highly unlikely to occur) would definitely not be treason, which has a narrow legal definition. We're not at war with Israel.
No, just on several on behalf of them.
Which one feels should also have been part of this "narrow legal definition".
Almost all crime requires some form of lying, at least by omission and often of the explicit sort. Fraud though, is much more narrow than "they deceived but also crimed"... and anyone saying otherwise should be so embarrassed that we never have to hear their halfwittery ever again.
Who exactly here is the victim that gets it legal rights deprived or what is the gain at the expense of the victim?
The victims are the people being deprived of their legal protections.
Not everyone agrees which information should be protected but sending information can be a form of harm. If I break into your bank, find all your financial transactions, and post it on Facebook, I have harmed you.
Courts imposing gag orders over criminal or civil matters is a critical protection, and attempting to violate those gag orders is harm. The specific victims aren’t known, but they intend for there to be victims.
1. You work for AWS, probably in account management or billing operations.
2. Your "buddy" in legal tells you that a subpeona has been processed that effects an Israeli government affiliated account.
3. Your buddy is breaking work rules and the law. You don't report it, as you are required to do. You're now a party to a criminal conspiracy.
4. Instead, you arrange for a payment to be made from AWS to an account in some pre-determined amount to communicate the confidential or legally sealed information that you conspired to steal.
Let's review. You're engaging in a criminal conspiracy to share restricted, sealed legal information with a foreign government. You are doing so by fraudulently stealing/embezzling money from your employer in a predetermined amount.
If that's not clearly understandable to you as a "bad thing" and a fraudulent activity, you're overthinking, lack any sense of law and ethics, are lacking cognitive ability, are a troll, or are just a schill for whatever team you're rooting for.
In this scenario Amazon is contractually obligated to pay Israel (unless they determine that they can't legally). If this employee is dutifully fulfilling that obligation in compliance with any relevant company approval process or other policies, then it's certainly not theft or embezzlement.
You seem to be adding a twist of "what if this is some random employee, not the one authorized to make the payments"? In that case sure, they might be defrauding their employer, but that has very little to do with the contract that this story was about.
It's like saying "what if instead of making the authorized payment to Israel, they keep the cash for themselves, then steal some monitors and assault some colleagues"? We've come up with a hypothetical where crimes are committed, yes, but it's hard to see how Israel would be to blame or would even be relevant.
In many/most? cases, a customer can be notified and can attempt to block such information gathering, but there are also many where it's not permitted.
Really most crimes don’t require deception.
I could send your username and password using similar methods, the medium doesn’t matter here but the signal and their attempt to hide it does.
A government can compel Amazon to avoid notifying a target (Israel in this case) that their information has been subpoenaed, but can't compel Amazon to lie and say it hasn't sent their info.
Or is the concept of a canary pretty much useless now?
I'm personally one of the "activists" who is trying to avoid Amazon and Google to a practical degree, due to project Nimbus, so I'd be more than happy if their data could be accessed, and even happier to see Amazon and Google just cut ties with them altogether.
US rules are, unfortunately, nortoriously and outlandishly broken whenever it comes to Israel: Foreign Agent Registration Act, the Leahy Law, and probably a bunch of others as well.
The act of communicating privileged or sealed information on itself is at minimum contempt of court and perhaps theft of government property, wire fraud or other crimes. Typically accounts payable aren’t aware of evidence gathering or discovery, so the actor is also facing conspiracy or other felonies.
No laws require prosecution and enforcement. Western countries shield Israel from all of that.