[HN Gopher] Department of Justice says Boeing may be criminally ...
___________________________________________________________________
Department of Justice says Boeing may be criminally liable in 737
MAX crashes
Author : andsoitis
Score : 328 points
Date : 2024-05-15 04:20 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usatoday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usatoday.com)
| chii wrote:
| criminally liable, but not enough for jail time? Then it's not a
| criminal liability, but a cost of doing business.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Companies cannot go to jail for crimes, its not an available
| sanction.
| consp wrote:
| Companies are expressed through and by people, and yes I
| ignore the "limited liability" bs since it should not shield
| you from criminal behaviour.
| semanticist wrote:
| So the owner of Boeing should be held personally liable?
| Okay, cool, except Boeing is a publicly traded company
| which means that the 'owner' is countless individual
| shareholders around the world, many of which are in turn
| other companies, whose owners are in turn things like
| pension funds.
|
| So if you have a pension, should we be locking you up
| 'cause it was partially invested in Boeing?
|
| Alternatively, you can have a specifically named role which
| is to be held liable? But then as far as the 'company' is
| concerned it's still just cost of doing business.
|
| There's only three viable ultimate sanctions for a
| corporate entity: financial, being split up, and the death
| penalty.
| hiatus wrote:
| Who said anything about owners? _Management_ should be
| held accountable.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| An explicitly cited reason DoJ approved the deferred
| prosecution agreement was that, on the basis of the facts
| available, management was not _collectively, even, much
| less individually_ aware of the facts imputed to Boeing
| based on the knowledge of lower-level employees which
| were necessay to be guilty of the crime.
| ericd wrote:
| The thing is, this sets up a moral hazard where it's
| advantageous not to know, not to keep close tabs, and
| tight control over your supply chain. If there were
| potentially harsh penalties for allowing this to happen,
| regardless of knowledge, I think you'd see much better
| controls put in place, and the incentive would be to keep
| safety critical operations kept in-house, where they can
| be better monitored, rather than spun out to make the
| return on capital look better to public markets.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The thing is, this sets up a moral hazard where it's
| advantageous not to know
|
| No, they would be better off if they had known what the
| pilots were doing and stopped the fraud rather than
| allowing it.
|
| > If there were potentially harsh penalties for allowing
| this to happen, regardless of knowledge, I think you'd
| see much better controls put in place, and the incentive
| would be to keep safety critical operations kept in-
| house, where they can be better monitored, rather than
| spun out to make the return on capital look better to
| public markets.
|
| If you made inaccurate reports to governments a strict
| liability crime with a harsh pubishment not requiring
| intent, recklessness,or negligence, I think that would
| actually be a bad thing and lead people to actively avoid
| any activity or field of business that might require
| reporting to the government.
|
| But, in any case, the fraud offenses at issue ARE NOT
| strict liability crimes now, so people without the
| requisite knowledge and intent cannot be guilty of them.
| sp332 wrote:
| If the stockholders didn't make the decision to defraud
| the FAA, then why would they be on the hook for this?
| chii wrote:
| Not that i disagree, but the corporation also has a way
| of diffusing responsibility to thousands of individuals,
| each making a small piece of the total decisions that led
| to an outcome. It's impossible, in theory, to pin a
| particular individual with absolute certainty, that
| they'r totally and 100% responsible for said outcome.
|
| Of course, i am in the camp of changing the regulation
| such that outcomes that would be considered gross
| neglegence leading to loss of life is layed on the
| management, regardless of whether the decision is
| diffused or not. Aka, they hold the statutory
| responsibility, and is criminally liable - that's the
| price of being in management. They would get the tools as
| management to put in place preventative measures, which
| can be used to cover their ass.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| Management gets paid money to make money make more money,
| but that does not include implying they need to break
| law/walk on the other's people's bodies to do so.
| OJFord wrote:
| And it doesn't, but the criminal behaviour then needs to be
| a personal one, not just like (and not saying this is the
| case) systemic issues at the company, regulatory oversight
| clearly insufficient or not preventative, no one person
| really specifically at fault through malicious action or
| reckless negligence so ehhh blame the CEO.
| Karellen wrote:
| > I ignore the "limited liability" bs since it should not
| shield you from criminal behaviour.
|
| It doesn't. That's not what "limited liability" is for.
|
| > Limited liability is a legal status in which a person's
| _financial_ liability is limited to a fixed sum, most
| commonly the value of a person 's investment in a
| corporation, company or joint venture. If a company that
| provides limited liability to its investors is sued, then
| the claimants are generally entitled to collect only
| against the assets of the company, not the assets of its
| shareholders or other investors. A shareholder in a
| corporation or limited liability company is not personally
| liable for any of _the debts_ of the company, other than
| for the amount already invested in the company and for any
| unpaid amount on the shares in the company, if any, except
| under special and rare circumstances permitting "piercing
| the corporate veil." The same is true for the members of a
| limited liability partnership and the limited partners in a
| limited partnership. By contrast, sole proprietors and
| partners in general partnerships are each liable for all
| _the debts_ of the business (unlimited liability).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability
|
| (emphasis mine)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Limited liability has nothing to do with this. Individuals
| can go to jail for crimes, to the extent they individually
| have committed them, but _because_ corporations are
| aggregates and not individuals, it is possible for them to
| be guilty of crime when no individual would. On the facts
| alleged in the 737 Max charges, if any individuals would be
| guilty at all, they wouldn't be the executives or
| shareholders you seem to be lusting for, but two test
| pilots (and its not clear they would be, only that they
| personally had the knowledge whose imputation to Boeing
| combined with corporate representations to the federal
| government made Boeing guilty.)
| baq wrote:
| board members and executives can and should. shareholder
| equity should be zero'd (or at least devalued if the
| shareholder had a significant impact on votes, whatever that
| means.)
|
| so should any vp, second line and even front line managers if
| they collaborated.
|
| whistleblowers should get government protection. not sure
| which government, though.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > board members and executives can and should.
|
| If they individually committed crimes and that can be
| proven beyond a reasonable doubt, sure.
|
| Of course, by DoJ's own description of why they approved
| the deferred prosecution agreeement, that's absolutely
| _not_ the case with the 737 Max charges.
| feoren wrote:
| How can the company commit crimes without its decision-
| makers committing crimes? This double-standard we have is
| ridiculous. Every 1% increase in stock price is always
| attributed entirely to the wunderkind CEO and he
| therefore deserves tens of millions in bonuses every
| year, but a criminally negligent company kills people and
| suddenly the CEO has _nothing to do with it_? They are
| acting as the _chief executive_ of the criminal
| corporation. Those fuckers should be thrown in jail. "Oh
| but then our favorite Harvard MBA Graduate with a
| transcript full of Gentleman's Cs who's the grandson of
| the previous billionaire CEO wouldn't _want_ to be CEO!!
| Who would _want_ the job!? " -- fucking GOOD. They get
| paid 300 times more than line workers, and we're worried
| about how the job might not be cushy enough to attract
| our favorite nepo-babies? Maybe the most lucrative jobs
| in the entire world _should_ only be attractive to people
| who are actually competent at making sure the company is
| operating well and not literally murdering innocent
| people!?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How can the company commit crimes without its decision-
| makers committing crimes?
|
| Very easily. Companies as aggregates of people beyond
| just the decision makers can both do actions and have
| knowledge that the decisionmakers do not, and knowledge
| and action tend to be important in the definition of
| crimes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _shareholder equity should be zero 'd _
|
| This is what criminal convictions with large fines do. The
| Board members and executives then get to spend years in
| shareholder lawsuits. If those suits turn up evidence of
| individual criminality, prosecution is on the table.
| sethammons wrote:
| which is one of the many reasons why corporations should not
| be counted as people and allowed a political voice.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If corporations weren't counted as people, they couldn't be
| held criminally liable when, viewed as a single entity,
| they had the requisite combination of knowledge ans action
| to be guilty of a crime, but where none of the constituent
| individuals considered alone did.
| sethammons wrote:
| a corporation being held criminally liable holds about as
| much as a wet paper bag. It is an accounting issue; the
| cost of doing business. Absolute worst case scenario for
| the business: it folds. "Oh well, killed people; guess we
| need to make a new company." There is a lack of
| _personal_ accountability.
|
| Hold executives criminally liable. Fine companies, sure,
| but if people die from gross negligence or due to
| processes endorsed by leadership, that should end with
| prison time as a warning to others. Don't let them say
| they didn't know and that the decisions were spread out
| over people and time. The buck stops with leadership --
| that is, ostensibly, why they make the big bucks. If they
| couldn't know due to spread out decision making then they
| set up and perpetuated the wrong system.
| 1-6 wrote:
| What was the crime? Negligent manufacturing?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Fraud. Lying to federal regulators during 737Max approval. See
| link for a better description...
|
| https://apnews.com/article/boeing-justice-department-737-max...
| mlindner wrote:
| That sounds a lot harder to prove than if they were going for
| negligence.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That sounds a lot harder to prove than if they were going
| for negligence.
|
| Well, it was solid enough that Boeing was willing to pay
| $2.5 billion _plus_ accept a bunch of behavioral controls
| not to settle the charges, but simply to get a deferred
| prosecution agreement in which, if they were really good,
| they wouldn't have to face charges for it.
| hgyjdetjj wrote:
| Lying is quite easy to prove with a few incriminating
| emails.
| wsc981 wrote:
| One reason why the Dutch PM uses an old Nokia phone with
| very limited capacity, so he needs to delete SMS messages
| often: https://archive.ph/q6a3l
|
| And I don't think he emails much :)
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Deleting official communications can be a violation of
| law in the US. Hilary should've gone to jail for it, but
| she didn't because she's a Clinton.
| barkbyte wrote:
| Trump habitually destroyed similar and also didn't get
| prosecuted.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Of all the fake news "gotchas" about Trump I've heard,
| that's a new one for me.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| Which have already been made public
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > What was the crime? Negligent manufacturing?
|
| Fraud related relating to the 737 Max, plus subsequent
| violations of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement (that
| agreement was why they hadn't yet been prosecuted for the
| fraud), and the violations of the non-prosecution agreement
| also may have included _subsequent_ fraud about matters which
| contributed to the recent door incidents.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| Negligent homicide is a criminal charge brought against a
| person who, through criminal negligence, allows another person
| to die. Some jurisdictions require "gross negligence" or
| enhance the degree of the crime where there is "recklessness".
| sofixa wrote:
| > Negligent manufacturing
|
| Among other things. There are very strict rules in aircraft
| manufacturing on procedures to follow, documentation to have,
| etc. And Boeing have been found lacking to say the least in a
| number of those.
|
| That plus all the coverups and lying around MCAS are probably
| enough to put a few people in jail if one had faith in the
| Justice department.
| purple-leafy wrote:
| Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere
| traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car
| crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we
| initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A,
| multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the
| average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X.
| If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
|
| Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of
| accidents?
|
| Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
|
| Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
|
| Narrator: A major one.
| mcepl wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto#Fuel_system_fires,_...
| pif wrote:
| > A new car built by my company ...
|
| While I think I get your point, I also believe that the
| background is very important. If your company applied standard
| engineering procedures, that's critically different from
| building a new product and actively hiding the differences with
| respect to the last one.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Like Toyota's car with a "simulated stick shift"?
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45754176/toyota-manual-
| ev...
|
| > The prototype was convincing even when we tried to fool it.
| De-clutching leaves the car coasting, and selecting lower
| gears increases the regenerative braking, simulating the
| feeling of engine braking. When downshifting, it's possible
| to rev match by blipping the accelerator in the brief moment
| when the clutch is fully depressed. The penalty for letting
| the clutch up too abruptly when selecting a low gear is a
| bump of shift shock--momentarily over-revving the electric
| motors--and a similar lack of finesse when trying to pull
| away without sufficient revs results in a virtual stall.
|
| Sure, simulating the stall characteristics of an aeroplane is
| several orders of magnitude worse than simulating the stall
| characteristics of a car, but... still.
| maxerickson wrote:
| It doesn't sound like Toyota is trying to hide anything,
| they are preparing to sell something they think people
| want.
|
| (The feature sounds stupid to me)
| tstrimple wrote:
| I've been eyeing the Ioniq 5 N which has the paddle
| shifting rev-limiting simulation stuff as well. Most of
| the reviewers _really_ enjoy those features on a track.
| When coming up to a turn, the simulated RPM gives you
| much more contextual information than a pure electric
| experience does. The main point that kept coming up is
| the RPM levels when approaching a corner. They could tell
| if their speed was right in the approach based on the
| sound the engine was faking which is how they would drive
| a manual ICE car through the same track. Of course you
| can turn all that off and soften the suspension right
| back up in order to get the comfortable daily driving
| most folks are after. I don 't think it belongs on _most_
| EV, but it certainly seems to enhance some. At least
| while we 're still more familiar with the trappings of
| ICE performance vehicles.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I would guess that it will vanish when someone comes up
| with a similar feedback mechanism that is better aligned
| with the performance characteristics of the powertrain.
| newsclues wrote:
| I think the technology will explode when you can download
| a tune from classic or cool cars and have the sound and
| performance map of a Ferrari or Aston Martin when you go
| out for a fun drive on weekends.
|
| It's not about max speed but enjoying the experience of
| driving.
| mikestew wrote:
| That's the most reasonable explanation I've heard for why
| the N model makes "unnecessary" noise. Because as an
| owner of a regular Ioniq 5, I feel it's an otherwise dumb
| idea. The reviews I've read all just say, "makes vroom-
| vroom noises, yeah!" But track-time feedback, okay, I can
| get along with that.
|
| (And it makes those steering wheel flappy paddles at
| least _somewhat_ useful. The paddles on mine just change
| the regenerative braking level...which could have been
| done with a steering wheel button.)
| maximus-decimus wrote:
| 99.9% of cars with cvts pretend to switch gear instead of
| just acting like a CVT.
| mannykannot wrote:
| It is a stretch to call the MAXes a new product, even though
| it turned out to require more extensive work than envisioned,
| but the bit about actively hiding the differences is right on
| point.
| Retric wrote:
| There's a bigger difference between the MAX family and
| other versions of the 737 than there is between all the
| different crossovers a car company pumps out.
|
| Boeing 737 MAX 7 is 138,699 lbs vs 737 800 @ 90,710lb vs
| 737 100 @ 61.994 lbs. Hell the new 737 MAX 10 is ~203,000
| lb.
| mannykannot wrote:
| This is not the issue that is raising questions of
| criminal liability.
| Retric wrote:
| It's definitely part of the issue.
|
| Boeing was trying to pretend scaling the aircraft again
| and again wasn't significant due to regulations and
| physics eventually disagreed.
| mannykannot wrote:
| Regardless of how one characterizes the magnitude of the
| changes, if the unanticipated difficulties had been
| handled openly, there would be no question of criminal
| liability. Furthermore (though it is also beside the
| point), physics has not ruled out the MAXes.
|
| In addition, the door-plug issue is tied in here on
| account of the 2021 deferred prosecution agreement, which
| also followed from Boeing's duplicity over the MAX issue.
| Retric wrote:
| > Regardless of how one characterizes the magnitude of
| the changes, if the unanticipated difficulties had been
| handled openly, there would be no question of criminal
| liability
|
| You're skipping over the first half of my statement. If
| the unexpected difficulties had been handled openly they
| would have needed to go through more regulatory hurdles.
| Physics didn't put them into some kind of catch 22
| situation the aircraft could have been safe, it just
| couldn't be safe while playing games with regulators.
| That's where criminal liability shows up.
| mannykannot wrote:
| As far as I can tell, I'm just skipping over the issues
| which may be true, but are beside the point, but then, it
| is not clear to me which statement's first half you think
| I am skipping over.
|
| The point I have been making all along is that,
| regardless of what led Boeing to the point of choosing to
| hide or misrepresent the situation, it is the choice to
| do so that turns this into a potentially criminal matter.
| With the same physical/technical problems but proper and
| timely disclosure of the issues during development, by
| far the most likely outcome would have been a delayed
| program delivering MAXes substantially similar (in both
| construction and operation) to the ones which are
| certified and flying today. After that, even in the
| unlikely event that the crashes had occurred, criminal
| prosecution would be unlikely, and certainly not on the
| basis of the facts for which it is currently being
| considered.
| Retric wrote:
| > are besides the point
|
| Except they aren't beside the point.
|
| > substantially similar (in both construction and
| operation)
|
| The physical aircraft would have been similar, but
| airlines would have spent 10's of millions more on
| training which makes a real difference to them and thus
| sales.
|
| Boeing could have released the aircraft on exactly the
| same date while complying with the spirit of relevant
| relations though at higher costs, but the product would
| have been meaningfully worse from a sales perspective.
| Even today regulators have allowed Boeing and the
| airlines to treat the 737 MAX family as much more closely
| related to earlier 737's than they actually are.
| mannykannot wrote:
| All of these things are beside the point here because
| none of them form the basis on which criminal proceedings
| are being considered by the DOJ. Without the information
| hiding and misrepresentation, there is no basis,
| regardless of either the physics or the economics of the
| issue.
|
| In addition, even if it is true that regulators have now
| allowed Boeing and the airlines to treat the 737 MAX
| family as much more closely related to earlier 737's than
| they actually are, this is not the basis of the DOJ's
| investigation, either.
| Retric wrote:
| Criminal proceedings in the US care about motives. It
| would be vastly harder to bring a case like this if there
| weren't incentives to ack as they did.
|
| Regulators aren't at issue, but trying to avoid
| regulatory scrutiny is. Or as is often said it's the
| coverup that they get you for.
| mannykannot wrote:
| The motives were there regardless of how Boeing chose to
| act. It's the chosen act that is potentially criminal.
| The DOJ is not in any doubt as to whether or not Boeing
| had a motive, and it is not considering at all the
| question of whether regulators have now allowed Boeing
| and the airlines to treat the 737 MAX family as much more
| closely related to earlier 737's than they actually are,
| regardless of any parties' motives in that regard.
| Retric wrote:
| A and B is false if B is false, but that doesn't make A
| irrelevant.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is the size the biggest difference or the fact that the
| center of gravity is totally different? So much so, they
| created an "hidden" software program to counter the CoG
| difference so the pilots feel like it is in the same
| place they are used to?
| labcomputer wrote:
| No, CoG has approximately nothing to do with it.
|
| The problem with the Max is aerodynamics: Civil airplanes
| are designed with negative aerodynamic feedback, so the
| nose-down torque ("pitching moment") increases as the AoA
| increases. But on the Max at very high AoA this feedback
| torque becomes somewhat smaller due to interaction of
| airflow around the engines and the wing. That by itself
| is not a problem because the nose-down torque still
| exists and airframe is still stable.
|
| There is a regulatory requirement that the amount of
| pilot's control force required to maintain a given AoA
| must be a non-decreasing function of AoA[1]. Due to the
| Max's aerodynamics, this requirement is not met.
|
| Boeing's MCAS was a bandaid to make the plane meet
| regulations by applying nose-down trim while at high AoA.
| The trim results in a higher yoke force, so the plane
| meets the requirement. A better method would have been a
| "stick pusher" (which have been used as stall prevention
| devices for over 50 years, though not on the 737) or
| addition ventral fins (like on the Beech 1900). But
| either of those would have probably required
| recertification
|
| [1] The purpose of this is to reduce pilot-induced
| oscillations: see what happened with AA flight 587, where
| the _lack_ of a similar requirement for rudder pedals and
| yaw led to PIO which ultimately resulted in the tail
| falling off an Airbus.
| labcomputer wrote:
| > Boeing 737 MAX 7 is 138,699 lbs vs 737 800 @ 90,710lb
| vs 737 100 @ 61.994 lbs. Hell the new 737 MAX 10 is
| ~203,000 lb.
|
| No, you are confusing the empty weight of the 737-800
| with the mass gross takeoff weight of the 737 max 7.
|
| The correct comparison of MGTW is 174,200 (-800) vs
| 177,000 (max 7).
|
| Similarly, the -100's MGTW was 110,000, not 61,994. Also,
| the only source I can find for the max 10 is 197,900, not
| 203,000.
|
| Edit: so the plane grew by 80%, not 320%
| bmitc wrote:
| Is this referencing a real event or interview?
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| It's referencing Fight Club
| bmitc wrote:
| Thank you.
| someonehere wrote:
| It's comical nobody gets this reference, sir.
| gruez wrote:
| This might seem calculating and cold, but that's basically how
| government agencies work. It doesn't make sense to spend
| unlimited amounts of money to save a life, so government
| agencies have some sort of a dollar value on a life[1], above
| which where they won't bother doing interventions. For instance
| if it takes $15M to save a life, and that's above the DoT's
| estimate of $12.5M, then they won't bother. That's not to say
| that Boeing is in the right here, but if they were in the wrong
| it's not because "If X is less than the cost of a recall, we
| don't do one", it's because they grossly undervalued a life in
| their calculations.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life#United_States
| jollyllama wrote:
| We were taught as part of our CS curriculum that "often, the
| refusal to assign a dollar value to a human life results in
| it being terribly undervalued."
| skywal_l wrote:
| Put some CEOs in jail and you won't need to do all those
| multiplications.
| mountainb wrote:
| There is no such reluctance to do this in law. I think in
| philosophy classes, professors feel shy about acknowledging
| the humdrum reality of insurance, the tax code, and our
| regulatory bodies continuously assigning dollar values to
| human lives. It feels good and makes you look like a better
| person to say things like "the value of a single human life
| cannot be expressed in money terms." Perhaps this is the
| case, and what the companies and the governmental bodies
| are really valuing is the economically meaningful activity
| associated with a person and not the totality of their
| person.
|
| Babies are worth a lot of money even at a low imputed
| earning potential just because they have so much life to
| live.
| HPsquared wrote:
| In practice, there's a difference between a hypothetical
| probabilistic death rate, and real people / news stories.
| burkaman wrote:
| Government agencies use the statistical value of a life to
| weigh the benefits of a regulation against the costs to the
| public - the same people who would benefit from the
| regulation. Would a new safety requirement for cars be worth
| it if it added $500 to the price of every new car? They might
| use the value of a life to help answer that question.
|
| This is very different than the recall story, because in that
| scenario there is no cost to the public at all, only to the
| corporation. When government agencies make rules about
| product recalls, they do not try to balance the benefit to
| the public against the cost to the recalling company, that
| would be insane.
|
| See the DoT's own guidance here: https://www.transportation.g
| ov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-03/D.... They do not at all use
| this figure in the same way that a profit-driven entity does.
|
| > The benefit of preventing a fatality is measured by what is
| conventionally called the Value of a Statistical Life,
| defined as the additional cost that individuals would be
| willing to bear for improvements in safety (that is,
| reductions in risks) that, in the aggregate, reduce the
| expected number of fatalities by one.
|
| The word "individuals" is very important in this definition.
| gruez wrote:
| >This is very different than the recall story, because in
| that scenario there is no cost to the public at all, only
| to the corporation.
|
| ...assuming they don't pass it on to the customers
| burkaman wrote:
| That would be illegal, and "the public" is much larger
| than just the customers of a particular company. This is
| beside the point though. The government asks "would the
| average person be willing to pay $x to lower their chance
| of death by y%". The corporate executive asks "would _I_
| be willing to pay >$0 to lower their chance of death by
| y%". "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am
| willing to make."
| krisoft wrote:
| > That would be illegal
|
| What do you mean it would be illegal? Obviously the
| corporation prices in all the expected future recalls
| into their prices. Yes they won't charge you for the
| recall, but the future costumers will pay higher prices
| if in the corporation's calculation the chance of recalls
| (or the cost of doing them) is increased.
| cycomanic wrote:
| > > That would be illegal
|
| > What do you mean it would be illegal? Obviously the
| corporation prices in all the expected future recalls
| into their prices. Yes they won't charge you for the
| recall, but the future costumers will pay higher prices
| if in the corporation's calculation the chance of recalls
| (or the cost of doing them) is increased.
|
| Why oh why do I have to read this on HN again and again?
| The price of a good does not primarily depend on the cost
| to make it. So no Boeing can't easily raise their future
| prices to account for the cost of saving lifes, because
| there are competitors.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > because there are competitors
|
| Unfortunately, in Boeing's case there _aren 't_ very many
| competitors.
| gruez wrote:
| >That would be illegal
|
| As the other commenter has mentioned, it's passed on via
| higher prices in the future.
|
| >This is beside the point though. The government asks
| "would the average person be willing to pay $x to lower
| their chance of death by y%". The corporate executive
| asks "would I be willing to pay >$0 to lower their chance
| of death by y%". "Some of you may die, but it's a
| sacrifice I am willing to make."
|
| Okay, but surely you don't agree that Boeing should spend
| infinite amounts of money making their planes safe? For
| instance we don't install backup engines on the off
| chance that all 2 engines fail. That's all I'm trying to
| argue, that the cold calculation/cost benefit analysis as
| mentioned in the OP isn't where Boeing went wrong, it's
| that they they undervalued the value of a human life.
| This was specifically mentioned in my original comment.
| burkaman wrote:
| What I am trying to argue is that valuing a human life
| accurately doesn't matter if you're weighing it against
| your own profits. The correct comparison is against
| societal benefit, profit is completely morally
| irrelevant.
|
| I agree that the ceiling for how much money you could
| spend trying to make an airplane perfectly safe is
| infinite, so by definition they have to stop somewhere.
| However, I disagree that finding that line of where to
| stop has anything to do with the statistical value of a
| human life.
|
| For example, imagine the Boeing CEO says "we could spend
| $20 billion on R&D and manufacturing of a new safety
| system that would on average prevent 1 crash per year,
| but a 737 MAX carries 200 people, at $15M per life that's
| only $3 billion in value, so it's obviously better for us
| to skip it and pass that $20 billion on to shareholders".
| This would be criminal, and not because their value of a
| life is off and they got the math a little bit wrong.
| It's criminal because they are consciously choosing to
| kill people unnecessarily.
|
| If it is physically and financially possible to make your
| product safer, you do it, without any thought to how much
| a life is worth. If it is not possible, because you can't
| figure out how to solve a problem or it would be so
| expensive to fix that your business couldn't survive,
| then you sit down and think about whether it's worth
| selling your product at all. Are there safer alternatives
| available? Could a better-funded company fix the flaws
| you've found? If you determine that your product is
| important, there are no alternatives out there, and it
| cannot be made safer, only then do you start weighing the
| benefits to society against the deaths you expect to
| occur. I don't really think this is a financial decision
| involving the value of a life - if you expect your
| product to kill people then the expected benefits need to
| be so overwhelming that doing the financial math is
| unnecessary.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >For example, imagine the Boeing CEO says "we could spend
| $20 billion on R&D and manufacturing of a new safety
| system that would on average prevent 1 crash per year,
| but a 737 MAX carries 200 people, at $15M per life that's
| only $3 billion in value, so it's obviously better for us
| to skip it and pass that $20 billion on to shareholders".
| This would be criminal, and not because their value of a
| life is off and they got the math a little bit wrong.
| It's criminal because they are consciously choosing to
| kill people unnecessarily.
|
| It is not criminal and I have no idea how anyone can
| think it is.
|
| The crime is in the first paragraphs of the article:
|
| >Boeing has violated a 2021 agreement that shielded it
| from criminal prosecution after two 737 Max disasters
| killed 346 people overseas, the Justice Department told a
| federal judge in a court filing Tuesday.
|
| >According to the Justice Department, Boeing failed to
| "design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics
| program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S.
| fraud laws throughout its operations."
|
| So to recap, they were agreed to implement internal rules
| that match US laws after killing a bunch of people to
| avoid criminal liability, _which they failed to do_.
| gravescale wrote:
| > If it is physically and financially possible to make
| your product safer, you do it, without any thought to how
| much a life is worth.
|
| A cursory glance at how basically any product is
| designed, will tell you that this is not true.
|
| All engineering is fundamentally compromise between
| utility functions and cost functions (where cost is
| monetary, or weight, or size, or poor usability, ugliness
| etc).
|
| If every light switch was a 2-foot, 200kg cube with a
| titanium shell filled with monitoring electronics running
| on lockstepped processors, fire suppression and potting
| compound, and was tested individually for a year before
| sale, it's still not as safe as one with six grounding
| points (in case the first 5 fail) and triple-thick gold
| plating on the contacts. You have to stop somewhere.
| beojan wrote:
| > For instance we don't install backup engines on the off
| chance that all 2 engines fail.
|
| We used to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
| enragedcacti wrote:
| If they could have charged more for the car they already
| would have. A recall only affecting one make or model
| won't have a large effect on the profit-maximizing price
| of the car because the value proposition of the car
| hasn't changed (or got worse because of perceived
| unreliability). The cost would then be born by the
| company and not the consumer.
| close04 wrote:
| They could make products or services more expensive but
| then manufacturers with many recalls would end up being
| prohibitively expensive.
|
| Each person can just choose individually a different
| manufacturer from the many options, one being "none at
| all". But you only get one government, it takes a
| majority to choose, and once chosen you're bound to its
| directions. So not the same thing at all.
| cced wrote:
| The problem with this type of thinking is that it often
| assumes externalized costs, and even at that, what price do
| you put on "I don't want to use car of brand X because the
| car maker is doing sus things and people speaking out about
| it are dying." ?
|
| Take for instance the recent train derailments. Are the costs
| of cleanup n>0 if the company can get their lawyers to
| successfully argue they don't need to pay it? For the company
| it's n=0 but for society it is n>0.
|
| Doing the maths is simpler when you can disregard many
| factors and leave only the ones that affect your bottom line.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| No it's because they grossly underestimated the importance of
| brand trust and reputation
| crznp wrote:
| Or: they had an accurate estimate for the importance of
| brand trust and reputation over the short term, and they've
| had that short term outlook for a long time. Perhaps since
| 1997.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's always a risk calculus that seems cold to an outside
| observer.
|
| The issue with Boeing and the MAX is that they sort of used
| the designation of the plane to for lack of a better term,
| avoid some of the risk calculations.
|
| With the early issues, a pretty cut and dry type training
| program would have likely prevented catastrophic incidents.
| They shaved pennys and set many dollars (and hundreds of
| people) on fire.
|
| If you run a company where low probability, high impact risks
| drive the operations of your products, setting trust on fire
| is going to have a real impact on your bottom line. You go
| from a trusted, admired company to target of memes about
| assassinated whistleblowers.
| everforward wrote:
| My very amateur understanding is that the MAX would have
| been dead on arrival if it required recertification. It was
| a marginal bump in fuel efficiency that still lagged behind
| Aerobus, so their only real marketing strategy was not
| having to recertify.
|
| Basically either it didn't require recertification or it
| wasn't worth making. I suspect somewhere along the line
| they realized that wasn't practical and they either shipped
| a shoddy project and maybe burned a pile of money or they
| gave up and definitely burned a smaller but still sizable
| pile of money.
|
| Probably also some worry that if they didn't have a
| competitive smaller plane, they'd lose market share and
| there'd be even less interest in their next plane.
| stephenr wrote:
| Government agencies in the form of rescue/emergency response
| organisations frequently spend huge sums of money to _try_ to
| rescue _indidivuals_.
|
| The US Coast Guard explicitly stated that they "do not
| associate cost with saving a life" following that fateful
| Billionaires game of chicken with extreme water pressure.
| badpun wrote:
| The difference is that the government agency actions do not
| cause deaths (it merely prevents death from independent
| causes), whereas "major car manufacturer" kills people with
| their faulty rear differential.
| bastard_op wrote:
| And what self-respecting congressman, senator, or president
| didn't have a pet CEO or three of any said major automotive
| cartel at the time sponsoring them? If they didn't, they're
| not doing it right.
| asah wrote:
| Just C is set to a high enough value, including personal
| penalties and imprisonment for any executives who failed to
| stop this decision (including the failure to setup reporting to
| hear about such decisions).
| brian_herman wrote:
| This is from the book Fight Club
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/691547-wherever-i-m-going-i...
| bottom999mottob wrote:
| Honestly this quote is one of Chuck Palahniuk's best
| dialogues. Recommend checking out his other work like 'Rant.'
| hengistbury wrote:
| More accurately, this is a quote from the Fight Club movie
| gosub100 wrote:
| What's the alternative? Never ship unless the risk is 0.00?
| (And yes I get the book reference)
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Reminds me of a business consultant who recently got roasted on
| TikTok recently because he described his $500k job as deciding
| whether or not companies should recall products or just weather
| the class action and liability suits.
| tangjurine wrote:
| Source?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| This 5ypical MBA formula ignores the most important variable.
|
| Z = brand trust
| tflol wrote:
| oh so this is what google facebook elon musk microsoft does to
| collect/share user data then get slammed with affordable fines
| later. I surprised this quote hasnt come to mind at reading
| those article
| bongoman42 wrote:
| For airlines and many other things you also have to consider
| the case that people might switch to even worse alternatives if
| the cost is too high. If airlines have to raise the prices too
| high for added safety features, people will switch to cars
| which are several orders of magnitude worse in safety. So
| airplanes might become safer but society may be overall worse
| off.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| This formula is for the statistically stupid. There is no such
| thing as average out-of-court settlement. One jury may find
| your company's behavior as egregious and decide to drive you
| out of business by awarding a trillion dollar judgment. Next
| your business insurance drops you for being uninsurable.
| henry2023 wrote:
| 1. There are long tail distributions which have a statistical
| mean
|
| 2. Boeign exists
| mlindner wrote:
| I think it'll be difficult to prove in court. To actually be
| found guilty they'll need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that
| the executives knew there was problems it wasn't just ignorance
| or ineptness. That'll be difficult to show the jury unless they
| have some really good smoking gun evidence.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| >unless they have some really good smoking gun evidence
|
| They need witnesses. Like the ones who suddenly die a lot.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I think it'll be difficult to prove in court. To actually be
| found guilty they'll need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that
| the executives knew there was problems
|
| No, they won't. For one thing, the charges aren't personal
| charges against the executives, so they don't have to prove
| that executives, specifically, knew _anything_.
|
| The basis of the 737 Max charges that were put on hold because
| of the deferred prosecution agreement that DoJ has now
| determined that Boeing violated are addressed by DoJ here:
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-...
| sp332 wrote:
| So, two Flight Technical Pilots and that's it?
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| It's exactly for ignorance and ineptness that they should be
| going to prison.
| langsoul-com wrote:
| I highly doubt they'd be criminal indictments. Boeing is USA's
| baby, can't have them losing against European Airbus, or God
| forbid, Chinese Comac.
|
| Reminds me of when FAA didn't ground the Boeing, despite the
| fatal crashes because of that association. Instead, it was
| Chinese aviation authority that did, which forced every other
| airline to follow suit.
|
| Most likely a fine, round up a few line workers to take the heat,
| a manager or two, then call it a day.
| ars wrote:
| I agree with your premise but your first sentence contradicts
| your last one.
|
| I think there will be criminal indictments, but the punishment
| will be monetary and will not damage the company long term.
|
| It would be really hard to put anyone in jail anyway, there's
| too much diluted responsibility.
| amelius wrote:
| Because the EU never started a (criminal) lawsuit against a US
| company?
| ai_what wrote:
| In this hypothetical situation, would the US would be
| extraditing American Boeing executives to Europe?
|
| I think you're overestimating Europe here.
| niemandhier wrote:
| We have a mutual extradition treaty, and since the us
| frequently desires the extradition of high profile cases
| it's not impossible that his could happen.
|
| The biggest problem would be the absence of an European
| criminal law pertaining to companies.
|
| https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-
| content/summary/agreement...
| BlackFly wrote:
| If they need a head on a pike to get the rest of the world to
| trust them enough again to keep competing with Airbus then
| maybe they will find that rule of law still makes sense.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| So if members of the C-suite seeing jail time is what is best
| for the company going forward -- surely they will line up and
| fall on the sword.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The Cult of Shareholder Value, oddly, stops just prior to
| that point.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I highly doubt they'd be criminal indictments.
|
| This is a reference to an _existing_ criminal indictment, for
| which Boeing entered into a deferred prosecution agreement in
| which they paid $2.5 _billion_ in penalties and compensation
| and accepted various behavioral commitments, which DoJ is now
| saying they have breached, allowing prosecution to be
| recommenced.
|
| So, no, your prediction is wrong, it _is_ a criminal
| indictment.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| It is kind of amazing that a corporation can get a deferred
| prosecution agreement based on a monetary penalty.
|
| If I had killed someone, would I be allowed to buy my
| freedom?
| it_citizen wrote:
| You can do the next best thing.
|
| Get a very expensive defense team. There are too many
| instances of people who bought their freedom that way.
| 0x445442 wrote:
| I'm going to make a wild guess that those convicted of
| murder is disproportionately inversely correlated with net
| worth, so in a sense, yes you can.
| aeonik wrote:
| You can get plea bargains, and judges absolutely have
| discretion to put individuals on probation in lieu of
| criminal prosecution, if there is reason.
|
| But those have their own separate issues, of course.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| If that someone was a law abiding bicyclist or pedestrian
| you can expect only a wrist slap.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > If I had killed someone, would I be allowed to buy my
| freedom?
|
| You mean like
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Team_(law) ?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If I had killed someone, would I be allowed to buy my
| freedom?
|
| One difference between an individual and a company is the
| former can't be guilty of a crime because of knowledge held
| by the hand and imputed to the person by law, but not
| possessed by the brain.
|
| Which was pretty much the basis for the deferred
| prosecution agreement here, and why besides the monetary
| penalty Boeing was obligated to take steps to prevent
| similar frauds.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| For a corporation who doesn't exist in reality one of the
| most tangible punishments possible is monetary penalties
| plus behavioral commitments with teeth. It's not like
| they're going to put the Boeing HQ in a prison complex or
| something.
|
| Deferred prosecution saves a lot of money and time, on both
| sides, as well as deflects some amount of discovery. It
| also leaves a sword of Damocles over them that if they
| don't reform everything they hoped to avoid by paying all
| that money comes back upon them and worse.
|
| This feels like a pretty effective way to punish and
| attempt to reform a corporation. The fact Boeing is so
| managed by the accountants that even their lawyers can't
| convince them to stop cutting corners and trying to get
| away with substandard work to juice EPS is baffling though.
| The fact literally everyone on earth knows this is the
| problem yet they are still appointing a new airplanes unit
| CEO that is an accountant doubly so. (No joke, undergrad in
| accounting, MBA, both marginal schools)
| llm_trw wrote:
| It would work quite well if you put the board in prison
| though.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| > If I had killed someone, would I be allowed to buy my
| freedom
|
| In some cases this has been allowed, assuming it was not
| intentional. For example a neurosurgeon who accidentally
| hits someone in a crosswalk. The family can ask for no jail
| time so the surgeon can continue practicing because that's
| the only way the civil settlement will get paid. This
| depends on the victim or family's wishes, whether or not
| the prosecutor will approve, and what the judge thinks.
|
| From a societal view and the victim's view it might be a
| better outcome to get monetary compensation.
|
| FWIW since Boeing is too big to fail I'd love to see the US
| Government get rid of the current upper management and
| board. Put engineers back in charge and move HQ back to
| Seattle.
|
| Boeing's "new" CEO is another accountant. How much do you
| think he really cares or even understands the engineering
| and process issues? And how long do you think that "care"
| will last once the heat dies down?
| cowsaymoo wrote:
| Somehow another disastrous news cycle for Boeing. Any feature
| suggestions for my new extension that highlights MAX routes on
| Google Flights?
|
| https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/iabbdbcbohcifefhimd...
| qxfys wrote:
| I have been intentionally avoiding Max since the Lion and
| Ethiopian (at least when I buy the ticket).
|
| However, there were occasions when the airline rescheduled my
| flights (for many different reasons), which resulted in me
| being on a max flight. While I can change one of them, changes
| to most of them were not practical (time-wise, effort-wise,
| etc). So, at some point, I have to live with the fact that
| flying max is unavoidable. Any idea how we can practically
| circumvent this?
| jfim wrote:
| You can fly carriers that don't have any Boeing planes.
| JetBlue, Spirit, and Frontier don't operate any Boeing
| planes, as far as I know.
| qxfys wrote:
| Avoiding all boeing planes altogether seems to be an
| overkill solution to me. An older version of 737 and 777
| seems to be working pretty well. At least historically.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| Fly airlines whose fleets are 100% Airbus?
| qxfys wrote:
| I don't mind flying an older version of 737, though. :-)
| cowsaymoo wrote:
| That would probably require an active monitoring and
| notification system outside of the extension, maybe using a
| flight tracker api. It could be an added option at the
| purchase screen. At a minimum I may add this disclaimer here.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Fly less
| ForFreedom wrote:
| And the insurance of boeing pays up the fine/money..
| gonzo41 wrote:
| Until a few C-Level people go to Prison for a terribly long time,
| nothing will improve.
| thuridas wrote:
| Firing them with their bonuses and golden parachutes won't help
| at all
| cj wrote:
| Alternate approach that doesn't involve sending people to jail
| just to make an example of them:
|
| Make up a new position with equal authority as the CEO, but
| their only charter is safety and compliance. Lift the corporate
| veil specifically for that role (and only that role) so that
| they are personally liable for the performance in their role
| and the safety of the company's products.
|
| Require that companies halt sales and production if this role
| is unfilled.
|
| In a free market, no sane human would accept that job unless
| there was a (legitimately) extremely small risk that they would
| ever be personally liable.
|
| CEOs need incentive structures like this in order to change
| their priorities/behaviors.
|
| Sending CEOs to jail is the brute force approach.
| triceratops wrote:
| There are always people willing to risk jail time for a high-
| enough payoff. They're called career criminals and the role
| would attract them in droves.
|
| The only way honest people would take it is if they outranked
| the CEO on safety matters.
| EasyMark wrote:
| we need laws like Europe where they can charge significant
| percentages of global revenue (not sure how much at least
| 10%, possibly 50%?) before they'll listen. It's so rare for
| people to be criminally charged, the only really plausible,
| realistic change in policy is as I stated.
| hgyjdetjj wrote:
| Still nobody will go to prison.
|
| TooBigToJail as they say.
| amelius wrote:
| The least we can do is give them a criminal record.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I wonder if they are criminally liable for murdering 2
| whistleblowers as well..
| logicchains wrote:
| I'd guess not as nobody wants to be the judge (or jury member)
| they find themselves also criminally liable for murdering.
| lupusreal wrote:
| With only some circumstantial evidence? Almost certainly not.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| Virtually all evidence presented in courts is circumstantial
| (including DNA, fingerprints, etc.), eyewitness testimony of
| the actual crime is pretty much the only thing that isn't.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If they have anything like that then there might be the
| case, but so far all that is publicly known is that Boeing
| plausibly had a motive for wanting them dead. No sane
| prosecutor will try their luck with only that to go on.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| So the argument is that's it's weak evidence, not
| circumstantial. Circumstantial evidence is often the
| strongest kind.
| okdood64 wrote:
| What circumstantial evidence is there besides motive?
| lupusreal wrote:
| None that I know of, so I don't expect anything to come of
| it unless there's something more the public hasn't heard
| about. You can't reasonably expect a murder trial with that
| little to go on. They don't even have homicide listed on
| the death certificates.
| tristan957 wrote:
| Can you show us any evidence?
| ceving wrote:
| Some details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlaMQBEg-9M
| rob74 wrote:
| > _Boeing has violated a 2021 agreement that shielded it from
| criminal prosecution after two 737 Max disasters left 346 people
| dead overseas_
|
| Somehow I think this phrase would have been better without the
| word "overseas". After all (to quote the old Depeche Mode song),
| people are people, no matter if they're from the US, Ethiopia or
| Indonesia, so the fact that it happened overseas shouldn't make a
| plane crash less relevant. Although, if the first crash had
| happened in the US, maybe the increased scrutiny would have led
| to the second one being avoided...
| moring wrote:
| Might be just a remark so people don't wonder if they missed
| the news about these crashes.
| bell-cot wrote:
| True from most PoV's. OTOH, the U.S. Department of Justice's
| turf generally ends at the U.S. border, so "overseas" _is_ an
| important distinction here.
| sofixa wrote:
| > OTOH, the U.S. Department of Justice's turf generally ends
| at the U.S. border, so "overseas" is an important distinction
| here
|
| Nah, the US is _extremely_ aggressive all over the world, to
| the extent I 'm not sure anyone in that country understands
| the word jurisdiction outside of state/federal in their own
| context. Be it extradition of people committing crimes
| elsewhere/online, enforcing their own sanctions on companies
| in other countries, and tons of other things. Otherwise you
| wouldn't have Ukrainians getting extradited to the US for
| running torrent websites in Ukraine, Australians being
| extradited for running leak websites, French banks being
| fined for working with Iranian businesses, Colombians and
| Mexicans being assassinated or extradited for running drug
| empires in their own countries exporting to the US,
| kidnapping random civilians to be tortured based on their
| name/watch model, a law being on the books allowing the army
| to invade any place that held American war criminals (like
| the Hague and the courts there) and on and on and on.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's still an important distinction. Your list of things
| doesn't seem relevant to that at all.
| sofixa wrote:
| If the US Department of Justice thinks it has
| jurisdiction over Ukrainian torrent websites hosting
| links to American-produced media content, why wouldn't it
| have jurisdiction over American-produced planes killing
| people in Indonesia and Ethiopia from negligent design
| and manufacturing, both of which happened in the US?
| williamcotton wrote:
| There are these things called extradition treaties.
| sofixa wrote:
| Which apply to crimes committed in the country asking for
| extradition.
|
| E.g. Artem Vaulin didn't commit crimes in the US by
| running a torrent website from his home in Ukraine, yet
| he was extradited and sued by a court in Illinois,
| instead of a court in Ukraine where his alleged crimes
| took place.
|
| Random guys kidnapped by the CIA didn't commit crimes in
| the US either.
| arcticfox wrote:
| It would and should have jurisdiction over both, you're
| right.
| xattt wrote:
| Even though the crashes happened outside the US, the
| malicious actions around the engineering of those planes
| happened on US soil.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yes and no, and I used "generally" for good reason.
|
| While the DoJ's often-obnoxious international behavior gets
| plenty of attention, the "how much does this matter to the
| US?" threshold for them to get involved rises sharply
| beyond the US border. And the legal basis for their
| involvement (Boeing _does_ have lawyers, to argue the
| details in court) often changes, too.
|
| OR - if a small-time, local crook is robbing US banks, how
| likely is the DoJ to get involved? (Hint: Answer includes
| "FBI".) Vs. how many small-time, local bank robbers is the
| DoJ chasing in Canada? Poland? Thailand?
| alephnerd wrote:
| The US also has the Alien Tort Act from 1789 [0] (one of
| our oldest acts) that gives Federal Courts jurisdiction
| in violations of law abroad.
|
| It de facto allow foreign nationals to sue parties with
| sufficient ties to the US (most black money ends up in
| the US in some way) in Federal Courts for human rights
| violations committed outside the United States
|
| We also have the Magnitsky Act that allows US sanctions
| on foreign politicians found to have been corrupt (and
| it's named after the accountant who Jamison Firestone
| hired to manage his Russian business and who was
| assassinated for his investigations into corruption and
| malfeasance)
|
| There are a slew of additional laws, acts, and precedents
| that allow the DoJ to step in (or allow foreign nationals
| to push the DoJ to step in) if bad practices arise.
|
| Unsurprisingly, both China and Russia have been very
| vocally opposed to both acts, as it makes laundering ill
| gotten gains much harder.
|
| [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Tort_Statute
| weaksauce wrote:
| it was worse than just a quick assassination... he was
| arrested and sent to a horrible russian jail where he was
| tortured repeatedly and then withheld from medical
| treatment for a period of time until he died.
| alephnerd wrote:
| True! I was trying to keep a neutralish tone.
| afiori wrote:
| both can be true: The US is extremely aggresive in
| "protecting" internal interests internationally and lax at
| punishing its own for international crimes.
| mannykannot wrote:
| The distinction here seems to be going the other way: the
| DOJ is investigating a domestic entity over its domestic
| activities, even though the most serious consequences of
| that activity occurred overseas. If it does decide to
| proceed, it seems unlikely that it will have occasion to
| seek extradition of the major targets (or, if it did, that
| it could reasonably be seen as an abuse of extradition.)
| gruez wrote:
| >Ukrainians getting extradited to the US for running
| torrent websites in Ukraine
|
| Source?
|
| >a law being on the books allowing the army to invade any
| place that held American war criminals (like the Hague and
| the courts there) and on and on and on.
|
| Seems reasonable, considering they don't recognize such
| organizations. If they held Americans for crimes, it'd
| basically be kidnapping.
| michaelt wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KickassTorrents#Arrest_of_t
| he_...
|
| In practical terms, America's policy is that might makes
| right - an attractive policy, when you've got the might.
|
| Extradition is essentially a one-way affair: Ukrainian
| Artem Vaulin runs a torrent website hosted in Ukraine?
| Arrest and extradition at America's demand. An American
| like Anne Sacoolas kills someone in the UK by negligent
| driving? No extradition.
| andsoitis wrote:
| I think you need more solid examples.
|
| > Arrest and extradition at America's demand.
|
| Was he extradited? The article you linked to suggests
| not.
|
| > Anne Sacoolas kills someone in the UK by negligent
| driving? No extradition. This article says: "Sacoolas
| admitted causing death by careless driving, which carries
| a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. Justice
| Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said Sacoolas' actions were "not far
| short of deliberately dangerous driving," but she reduced
| the penalty because of Sacoolas' guilty plea and previous
| good character."
|
| Which seems to suggest you should blame a UK judge for
| letting Sacoolas go free, no?
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harry-dunn-uk-anne-sacoolas-
| sus...
| michaelt wrote:
| Sacoolas went free because she fled the country
| immediately after the accident, while making specious
| claims of diplomatic immunity.
|
| By the time it got to trial, Sacoolas was already beyond
| the reach of law. The only decision the judge faced was
| whether to further the controversy or brush it under the
| rug.
| gruez wrote:
| >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KickassTorrents#Arrest_of_
| the_...
|
| He tried to get his case dismissed on the basis that he
| wasn't in the US, and that motion was dismissed by a
| judge[1]. The reasoning given was that even though he was
| situated in Ukraine, he was doing crimes in the US by
| abetting Americans in copyright infringement. This seems
| somewhat reasonable to me. If a Ukrainian was hacking
| American computer networks from Ukraine, should he also
| be immune from US prosecution?
|
| [1] https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-vaulin
| sofixa wrote:
| > The reasoning given was that even though he was
| situated in Ukraine, he was doing crimes in the US by
| abetting Americans in copyright infringement. This seems
| somewhat reasonable to me. If a Ukrainian was hacking
| American computer networks from Ukraine, should he also
| be immune from US prosecution?
|
| But he wasn't actively doing anything to Americans or
| American networks like hacking. He was hosting a website
| where people, including Americans, could post links, and
| use links to download pirated content. The fact that
| Americans broke their country's laws is a crime they
| committed, not him.
|
| The judge's reasoning would imply that anything that
| happens online where Americans could access it and is
| criminal in the US automatically becomes a crime that
| happened in the US, which is crazy and total bullshit.
| Why isn't the US extraditing Hungarian porn actors and
| porn companies for showing online where Americans can see
| it exhibitionist porn which would be illegal in many
| places in the US?
|
| It's a ridiculous case.
|
| But you can bet that if France tries to extradite someone
| posting antisemitic bullshit on X related to France (e.g.
| about the recent desecration of the Shoah memorial), US
| courts will refuse extradition.
| everforward wrote:
| Anne Sacoolas is somewhat more nuanced than that, mostly
| because Diplomatic Immunity is a strange necessity for
| functional alliances.
|
| The underlying gist is that people important to the
| government or possessing sensitive knowledge are immune
| to prosecution from allies to prevent prosecution being a
| viable method of coercing information from government
| officials. Ie the US cannot charge a UK ambassador,
| because that ambassador may be tempted to leak secrets in
| exchange for leniency.
|
| The same typically goes for family members for the same
| reason.
|
| In this case Sacoolas had done undercover work for the
| CIA at some point, so likely had knowledge the State
| Department did not want leaked. Her husband was active in
| the CIA and likely also had similar knowledge.
|
| The same is true in reverse. You can look up the court
| cases, the US has had to drop several cases due to
| diplomatic immunity.
|
| There is an element of might makes right to diplomatic
| immunity because there is no real higher power to enforce
| it. If a country is willing to weather the political
| fallout (and reciprocal loss of diplomatic immunity),
| potential hostile action, and can get their hands on the
| perpetrator, they're free to ignore diplomatic immunity.
|
| In practice, diplomatic immunity is almost always
| respected, even when it could probably be ignored,
| because of onlookers. If the US ignores eg Kenya's
| diplomatic immunity (who they can likely afford to piss
| off), it might worry the UK who the US does not want to
| piss off.
|
| Diplomatic immunity is very, very rarely ignored, but is
| waived with some regularity. The US is particularly
| liberal with granting diplomatic immunity, though, and
| more reluctant to waive it than most countries.
| michaelt wrote:
| There were a lot of questions about whether Sacoolas had
| actually had diplomatic immunity, due to not being a
| diplomat and not having the paperwork a normal diplomat
| would have. Although perhaps it's to be expected that
| spies' paperwork would be irregular. There was also a
| claim that Sacoolas had some sort of secret diplomatic
| immunity under a secret treaty. Some reports claimed US
| spies had diplomatic immunity only while _on_ the
| military base, while their families had immunity even
| while _off_ base, implying Sacoolas would have immunity
| unless she was a CIA employee. Which she was at the time,
| according to some reports. Or was she merely a former CIA
| employee? Understandably, the CIA is not in the business
| of confirming such matters.
|
| I agree with you that there is nuance involved.
|
| I would say the precise nuance is irrelevant. Whether
| Sacoolas had immunity in _theory_ is unimportant - only
| that she had immunity in practice.
| masfuerte wrote:
| Sacoolas pleaded guilty to causing death by careless
| driving in 2022. She did not have diplomatic immunity.
| sofixa wrote:
| Artem Vaulin and friends from Kickass Torrents.
|
| > Seems reasonable, considering they don't recognize such
| organizations. If they held Americans for crimes, it'd
| basically be kidnapping.
|
| So if an American is detained in Germany for a crime
| committed there, that's kidnapping and the US can invade
| Germany? I'm sure you realise how delusional that is.
| karaterobot wrote:
| So you understand that there is a jurisdictional
| distinction between domestic and foreign. Good, so do they.
| That's what they're talking about.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| Julian Assange would like a word with you.
| jchook wrote:
| AFAIK the plane itself is still technically US soil.
| projektfu wrote:
| It is amazing to me how much grief could have been avoided if
| Boeing had committed to the 757 instead of the 737. Almost every
| operator who is using large 737s is using ramps and lift buses to
| access the aircraft, obviating the need to fill a large aircraft
| from a short staircase. Training pilots once to use 757s would
| have been a small expense compared to the risk that the entire
| Boeing brand is destroyed. And, the 757 could probably have
| stayed competitive with Airbus.
|
| Was all this craziness due to some business magazine article
| about Southwest Airlines doing so well because they only had one
| major type of aircraft?
| sofixa wrote:
| Southwest and Ryanair, two of the biggest airlines in the
| world, are exclusively 737. It allows them to keep maintenance
| and flight crew costs low, and they were the primary forces
| insisting on Boeing improving a design which is beyond its
| limits. They'll kick the can down the road for as long as they
| can.
| projektfu wrote:
| Did Southwest sell off all the 717s when they bought AirTran?
| I haven't flown SWA in a long time.
| sofixa wrote:
| According to Wikipedia:
|
| > Southwest integrated AirTran's fleet of Boeing 737-700
| series aircraft into Southwest Airlines brand and livery,
| and the Boeing 717 fleet was then leased out to Delta Air
| Lines starting in mid-2013
|
| Same as Alaska Airlines getting rid of the A320s they got
| by acquiring Virgin America. (Although they're in the same
| predicament again by acquiring Hawaiian).
| gosub100 wrote:
| I'm sure they considered it. Can a '57 fit in every airport
| (runway length, gate size, or base altitude) that a '37 can?
| What about engines? Would any engine maker have been able to
| deliver revamped '57 engines when they have been mostly
| focusing on other models?
| xenadu02 wrote:
| Some of Boeing's large customers would only commit to buying
| 737s if the update did not require training or updating the
| type rating. The 737 was originally so low to the ground to
| enable it to use air stairs and operate at airports without jet
| bridges (most airports at the time of its introduction). Not
| sure anyone could predict engine efficiency would require
| engines so much larger they wouldn't really fit on the 737.
|
| Not that this matters much since they ended the 757 in 2004.
|
| We can't really know what would have happened but it is
| possible introducing a telescoping landing gear system to let
| the 757 MAX sit higher off the ground would have avoided all of
| these problems. The engines could have remained at their actual
| design location meaning no need for MCAS. The failure mode
| would be failure to retract landing gear if the telescoping
| system failed... rather than uncommanded pitch changes. A
| simpler failure mode with less risk.
|
| None of this would have helped with Boeing's current problem
| (and a problem that plagued the 787 too): splitting off bits of
| the company and massive outsourcing to screw labor as hard as
| possible.
|
| Folks don't seem to remember the 787 was a huge fiasco because
| Boeing outsourced so much of that aircraft and their vendors
| were unable to deliver parts on the required timelines, at the
| required quality, or in the required quantity. Boeing ended up
| having to buy a bunch of them to bring work back in-house to
| rescue the program.
|
| Spirit Aerosystems was just the same strategy: outsource
| construction of the airframe (!!) by spinning off that
| department as a separate company so they could easily squeeze
| their now-vendor which would by design turn around and squeeze
| the employees. Kick them out of the Boeing retirement plan, cut
| benefits and pay, etc. Is anyone surprised Spirit filled
| positions with the cheapest bodies they could find? Think about
| the whole door fiasco: the ticket filed by Boeing QA was
| initially closed by the Spirit people basically doing nothing
| and hoping QA would just close the ticket without checking.
| That behavior didn't raise any alarms within Boeing indicating
| it was normal behavior by that point.
| thedudeabides5 wrote:
| good
| laylower wrote:
| I wonder if the value of life for those whistleblowers no longer
| around is the same...
| Kalanos wrote:
| corporations are not people. people are liable.
| paxys wrote:
| A company being criminally liable just means slightly larger
| fines. They aren't charging individuals. No one is going to jail
| over this.
| EasyMark wrote:
| This is one of those things that "sounds good" in a headline but
| I will never believe it until I see it. You have to do Enron
| level of white collar crime to ever get prosecuted in the USA for
| abusing the "corporate veil" above the middle management or
| specific individuals who take the fall for the higher ups.
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