Congress considers action on cruise ship crime

[pb82]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress, hearing horror stories Tuesday about crime aboard cruise ships, said legislation might be needed to guard against lawlessness on the open seas.

 

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Moderator's Note: This post originally contained the full text of the article linked above. I have edited it to comply with copyright laws and our Community Guidelines. Due to copyright law, we ask that our members please not post entire news articles (except cruise line press releases). Instead, please post a link to the place where you originally read the article. (You may post a small excerpt of the article, like the one above, with the link.) If you have any questions, please e-mail me at hostdoug at cruisecritic dot com or our Community Manager at community at cruisecritic dot com. Thank you for your cooperation. -Doug

[Kindlychap]

This reads to me as if America are seeking to make the reporting of crime to the American authorities a requirement of every cruise ship, irrespective of where it happens.

 

This is outrageous.

 

The USA can clearly make the rules in US waters. And I suppose that they can make the rules in respect of US flagged ships in international waters.

 

But to expect, for example, and incident such as the killing of a crew member, by a crewmember, on the North Sea on a British flagged vessel to be reported to the FBI is simply not on.

 

I realise that some crimes are extra-jurisdictional but these are rare.

 

America does not have a good history in trying to be the world's policeman - as the current chaos in Iraq shows, and for which far too many deaths have occurred to satisfy political posturing by Messrs. Bush, Blair, Berlesconi etc..

 

And how do we define "crime"? Under age drinking? In which case, what happens when an 18 year old resident of a state where drinking is permitted only for over 21s has a glass of champagne in the Solent?

 

It is a nonsense, through and through.

 

Lawyers have a phrase - hard cases make bad laws. Trying to legislate to cover appalling treatment meted out by cruise lines as described in the extract is not the answer.

 

Matthew

 

PS. Please don't assume that I would be any happier if the shoe was on the other foot and Parliament were trying this in reverse. It would still be wrong.

[songanddance]

Just another example of "Feel Good" legislation. Makes the politicians think they have done something good for their voters. Makes most of the voters think their government has done something for them.

 

Does absolutely nothing to deter the criminals nor make a single sole safer. But it does take up a lot of energy in Washington Dc spends our tax dollars and contributes to global warming and the further destruction of forests to print the law and to gather up all the paper work that would be required of the cruise lines.

[smeyer418]

I think if the ship either leaves from or ends in the US, you can make the reporting mandatory. You can also make it a crime not to report a crime against a US citizen anywhere as long as the cruise line has some nexus in the US(cruises stopping in the US)....I also assume they would define crime as something more serious than underage drinking. Like murder, disappearance allegation of rape, serious assault, etc.

BTw the posting of entire article is a copyright violation....

[dougnewmanatsea]

Generally speaking, when in the territorial waters of a given country, any crimes committed aboard a merchant ship will fall under the jurisdiction of that country. So, when a Cunard ship is in American waters, the US has jurisdiction over what happens on that ship.

 

In international waters, the country where the ship is registered has jurisdiction. So, when in international waters, Cunard ships are governed by British law.

 

Now, from that it would seem that the US Government has absolutely no jurisdiction over what happens on a foreign-flagged cruise ship outside US territorial waters. Unfortunately I fear it's not that simple... Once a company starts doing business in a country, it begins to become liable to that country's laws.

 

Let's take the example of Cunard. Cunard is actually not a company at all, but is just a brand name used by a company called Carnival plc. Carnival plc is incorporated in England and has its registered offices in London. The US Government cannot make a law that says that a foreign-flagged ship owned by this foreign company must report a crime that happens in the territorial waters of a foreign country, so they can't say that Cunard - a British company - must report a crime that happened outside US waters on a British ship. That is, they can't make it illegal. What I believe they can do is say that if these particular conditions are not met, the company will be banned from the US. And that is the prerogative of the US Government, since it is, as a sovereign government, allowed to ban anyone or anything it chooses from its sovereign territory. So if Carnival plc refused to follow the Government's "suggestions", the Government could ban Carnival's ships from US ports, ban the company and its subsidiaries from selling cruises in the US, probably even freeze company assets in US banks. They can't make it illegal for Carnival to not report those crimes but - especially given Carnival's dependence on the US market - they probably could put the company out of business if it did not follow their wishes.

 

As an example, US law has for years forbidden companies from certain countries like Cuba and Iran from doing any business in the US. They can't buy or sell anything in the US, have money in US banks, and so on. I see no reason why the US Government couldn't make a law saying that any company that doesn't meet this or that condition is forbidden from doing business in the US. Perhaps there is a reason, but I certainly can't think of one.

 

Now, whether it's right is a whole different matter - but I do think it would be possible.

[pnhmrk]

I see no reason why the US Government couldn't make a law saying that any company that doesn't meet this or that condition is forbidden from doing business in the US. Perhaps there is a reason, but I certainly can't think of one.

 

There is a simple solution for the cruise lines - either don't go to the US or split your companies into two - one part dealing with the US side, the other with the rest of the world.

[guernseyguy]

Looks like the Excited States is eager as ever to extend its own extra-territorial authority....but unwilling to help allies uncover the truth when their own personnel are involved:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6449227.stm

 

Meanwhile, back on topic, it sounds like politicians doing what we, sadly, encourage them to do by grandstanding that 'Something Must Be Done!' - and then like muppets, we vote for them...

 

.....Expect to see elderly matrons manacled and hooded in orange boiler suits enjoying extraordinary rendition to Guantanamo bay where they are going to get water boarded for buying their 18 year old grandsons half a lager in the Mediterranean.....

 

Peter

[pb82]

Seems to me that there are two needs here: official reporting of alleged crimes against persons at sea, and standard procedures for investigating the allegations.

 

Reporting should be manditory, I think, to the governments whose citizens are involved and to the government that registered the ship.

How to conduct the investigations is more complicated, but aren't there precedents? Crimes against the environment, e.g. fuel spills and sewage discharges at sea, are investigated. Are crimes against persons less important?

 

Paul

[SeaFlint]

As to America not being very good at being the world's policeman...

 

While I'm no fan of "world order politics", that rather common U.S.-bashing reminds me of what a Dutch friend said the last time his parents were making a similarly common complaint about the U.S. - "If it weren't for the Americans, we'd all be speaking German." Which, I suppose, extends to the fact that if it were not for the U.S. and the (rather epensive to the U.S. in terms of men, money and more) "policing" done during WWI, WWII, in the face of the Soviet Union, perhaps our beloved QM2 would be either a German flag vessel or a Soviet flag vessel.

 

How soon we sometimes forget...

[pb82]

"If it weren't for the Americans, we'd all be speaking German."

Careful, my guess is that there may be more than one CCer here who believes "If it weren't for the Americans, we'd all be speaking English."

 

Paul

[travel-to-go]

It seems to me that the reaction of the Brits on the board who have weighed in feel it is preposterous and that the US is being a bully and trying to grab more power for itself. The US responders are a bit more circumspect, allowing for a bit of possibility and differing opinions.

I wish I were at home,(With lots of time) I have a lot of "research" on this subject at home.

This legislation was prompted by several incidents, most heavily the one last year (sorry, I think it's now been two years) where a gentleman on his honeymoon disappeared from the ship outside the territorial waters of Rhodes. There is a strong possibility that foul play (and possibily stupid, ill-considered behavior on the part of the victim) was involved. Unfortunately, no one really knows. The widow has decided to settle with Royal Caribbean in an agreement so that she can get access to some of the logs and such that were otherwise denied her. The man's blood family is angry at her settling. (remember, he was a very wealthy man.) No amount of haggling or getting money is going to bring him back or assuage these people's heartbreak.

There was some very unusual behavior both by the cruise line and the land based authorities. Evidence was prematurely removed, the widow herself was treated very VERY poorly, by both the cruise line and the authorities. (There were some cruise people staff, in particular I believe a CD, someone who exhibited exemplary behavior, getting her clothes from the shops and even giving her some of her own) The US authorities were denied access to a lot (people, things, information, etc) This was a US citizen.

 

Maritime law is a very strange thing. It is not really cut and dried, and it's easier to say that there is NO jurisdiction outside of territorial waters. There have been heinous crimes involving both passengers and crew (for instance an instance where a crew member lured a child to the bowels of the ship, telling her he was going to show her a window where they could watch the dolphins underwater. He raped the child. It was in an area not even readily accessible to all crew. The child was threatened, her family was threatened (to her, so she would not tell them. this was a very evil controlling man), and more. Cruise lines don't want bad publicity. They don't want to have to be responsible for producing a foreign national to authorities anywhere. There have been incidences of rapes and assaults where they simply put the person off and sent them back to their native country (often the Phillipines or Indonesia) to avoid the whole thing. They are notorious about blaming the passenger when there are reports of crimes, "Gee are you sure you weren't just drinking too much and agreed to go with him" and such.

 

I have a lot of cases bookmarked, articles I have saved. I don't know the full details of the proposed legislation, but since the biggest crime in recent memory (other than the crew on crew assault and murder that happened last year) involved two Connecticut residents.

My legislators were very much in favor of getting some sort of laws that would give them the right to demand that evidence be preserved and that they have access to evidence, people, etc. Our former head of the State Police Forensic Unit, Henry Lee (also former Public Safety commisioner was finally allowed onto the ship for a brief period of time docked in Fort Lauderdale to do some modeling of the way a body might fall and splatter patterns (which he is a reknowned expert at) if they were pushed over the balcomny railing, vs if they fell (differences in rate of fall if pushed vs. fell, etc) This man is a forensic genius. (Also a tough boss, he is an indefatiguable worker and expects his employees to be, too. Not as a mean boss, but because he gets so excited about a case he stays up nights, working long, long hours for lengthy periods of time to try to solve it. He is now retired. but I have friends- in fact, trravel agents at my agency- who worked for him as latent fingerprint experts at the state police forensic labs. I go by there when I work in one of my switches in Meriden CT) Since RCCL actually had the carpet steam cleaned, removing evidence when the widow was taken off the ship, bagged up her personal items, and cleaned up the blood spatters from the awning that he hit first, the evidence was destroyed. Henry was still able to discern blood patterns on the carpet. (so all you would-be murderers out there, be advised, it is almost impossible to remove all traces of blood even washing clothing multiple times in hot water and bleach. Ask any woman of came of age in the day....) I believe UV light will still show blood patterns after multiple cleanings.

 

Anyway. I do not wish to see my country and my government overreach. And we certainly have our share of bozos in law enforcement and government. I don't deny that.

However, the problem (as I see it and many of our legislators see it) is that there is no real law here. The law of the sea, maritme law was really constituted to protect the rights of cargo bearers,and seamen. It does a very poor job of the things that I believe ALL of us would agree should be done in the event of a serious crime. Destroying evidence is a crime in this country, especially in the case of a homicide. At sea, it is not.

 

So sorry, Matthew and Peter. I have to agree on this one. Whether it will do any good, or is just "feel good legislation" as S&D says, who knows. We manage to take laws, passed with the very best of intentions and use them in the worst ways. But without laws, then we do not even have a fighting chance.

 

I'd like to think we can do this right and not make it a political football to be used as a cudgel for something else we really want, and I'd like to see it used in only extreme circumstances, and used the right way. I have my doubts, but without it we have no rights whatsoever, and heinous crimes can get pushed under the rug (or swept overboard, as it were)

 

If this thread is still going strong when I get home this weekend, perhaps I will post some links that might really scare all of you at what could happen to any of us and what rights we have. (or don't have!)

 

Karie,

who is heading for happy hour and the bar! (but taking my laptop with me. I have a cellular modem that is going strong!)

[guernseyguy]

But without laws, then we do not even have a fighting chance.

 

Agreed - but why not work cooperatively with other countries through the UN to achieve it, rather than acting unilaterally on your own? When your Government will not even cooperate with your main ally in Iraq, over investigations into deaths caused by US servicemen, why should any of the rest of us cooperate with you? And just because you say so? And for those of us who think Europeans would be speaking German, don't forget, if it wasn't for the Brits YOU would be speaking French, and if it wasn't for the French, you'd be subjects of HM QEII....

 

Peter

[smeyer418]

It also looks like the Congress wants the Cruise lines to work this out themselves voluntarily as they have adjourned the hearings for 6 months. But it is also clear to me that the cruise lines won't do anything unless they fear further possible action by the legislature. It also strange to me that the people who have pointed out the "contract" or similar things that are on the cruise line side come from the EU where consumer protections are much stronger than they are in the US....

[dougnewmanatsea]

There was some very unusual behavior both by the cruise line and the land based authorities.

Then that is up to the flag state of the ship (the Bahamas) and the country whose land-based authorities those were (Turkey).

 

The US authorities were denied access to a lot (people, things, information, etc) This was a US citizen.

The US authorities do not necessarily have any right to people, things, or information about a crime that occurred in a foreign country.

 

it's easier to say that there is NO jurisdiction outside of territorial waters.

There is indeed jurisdiction. It falls with the flag state of the ship.

 

My legislators were very much in favor of getting some sort of laws that would give them the right to demand that evidence be preserved and that they have access to evidence, people, etc.

I think such legislation would be illegal. It is a violation of the sovereign rights of other countries.

 

Let's pretend the crime happened on land in the Bahamas, not on a Bahamian ship in international waters. Would the US government have the right to demand these things from the Bahamian authorities? NO.

 

On another note, let's please try and keep this thing on the topic of cruising, not Iraq, the UN, etc. There are other places to discuss those things.