Live data from Hacker News

Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

rte.ie

11–20 of 30 posts

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#11
post #10

We have prisons where people work producing military equipment, and how much one needs to go to prison? How much law lobbying is done by prison owners?

Came here to say the same. USA has hundreds of thousands of prisoners toiling away in Georgia and other states. They are simply better fed slaves, but slaves the same. Probably makes it worse that they are mostly black.

Also, they have labor strikes,

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20101209231616269

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#12
post #11
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say the same. USA has hundreds of thousands of prisoners toiling away in Georgia and other states. They are simply better fed slaves, but slaves the same. Probably makes it worse that they are mostly black.

Also, they have labor strikes, http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20101209231616269

Also, they have cell phones.

http://www.wsbradio.com/news/news/local/growing-problem-cell...

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#13
Just had an interesting thought: what would be the legal implications should a private party mount a recon drone effort against North Korea?

Assume there was some way to launch small-ish drones from international waters and fly them to such stated labor camps to take pictures/do whatever which did not include any weapons?

What if this effort was a decentralized grass roots activism effort?

Assume DPRK was to simply attempt to shoot down said drones, what other recourse, aside from doing something like attacking South Korea or something, would they have.

Finally what other international laws would be broken by this activity? Would the countries where the drone pilots/owners were from be either inclined or required to prosecute these activists? If so, under what laws?

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, they have labor strikes, http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20101209231616269

Also, they have cell phones. http://www.wsbradio.com/news/news/local/growing-problem-cell...

Also, they were convicted in trials, for violating laws that were written by an elected legislature, and signed into law by an elected president. They were also provided an attorney, and have an appeals process at their disposal.

Seriously, yes, our prison system is really, really screwed up, but we got here largely out of public myopia and apathy, and to indicate we arrived at this place for reasons bearing any similarity to North Korea's is ignorant, at best.

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#15

Just had an interesting thought: what would be the legal implications should a private party mount a recon drone effort against North Korea? Assume there was some way to launch small-ish drones from international waters and fly them to such stated labor camps to take pictures/do whatever which did not include any weapons? What if this effort was a decentralized grass roots activism effort? Assume DPRK was to simply a…

I'm pretty sure the subtle legalities would be lost on the North Koreans, so they'll definitely shoot down the drone and probably torpedo the boat. They'll find out the nationalities of the activists and boat and raise a stink so high, you'll probably get in trouble with your own government who'll charge you with god knows what (some Light Treason?)

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#16

We have prisons where people work producing military equipment, and how much one needs to go to prison? How much law lobbying is done by prison owners?

This is simply not relevant and it reads a bit like a "tu quoque" argument from a North Korean apologist. It doesn't do them justice to call these "prison camps", they are gulags, they are concentration camps for political prisoners. Visiting them would be to revisit some of the worst horrors of the 20th century as seen in Nazi death camps or Stalinist gulags. The only reasons why these horrors haven't driven the west to action are that information about these camps are very difficult to get out and also there is very little we could do about the problem without causing millions of deaths (of South Koreans too) in the process.

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#17

Just had an interesting thought: what would be the legal implications should a private party mount a recon drone effort against North Korea? Assume there was some way to launch small-ish drones from international waters and fly them to such stated labor camps to take pictures/do whatever which did not include any weapons? What if this effort was a decentralized grass roots activism effort? Assume DPRK was to simply a…

South Korean Christian groups have been launching weather balloons into North Korea for a long time, as has the SK military apparently (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/world/asia/28korea-balloon...). NK doesn't like it one bit, but it still goes on.

Not sure how much of a difference the balloons being powered drone would make.

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#19

Just had an interesting thought: what would be the legal implications should a private party mount a recon drone effort against North Korea? Assume there was some way to launch small-ish drones from international waters and fly them to such stated labor camps to take pictures/do whatever which did not include any weapons? What if this effort was a decentralized grass roots activism effort? Assume DPRK was to simply a…

Do it, everyone else is.

;-)

Re: Google Earth puts North Korea Labour camps on the map

#20

Just had an interesting thought: what would be the legal implications should a private party mount a recon drone effort against North Korea? Assume there was some way to launch small-ish drones from international waters and fly them to such stated labor camps to take pictures/do whatever which did not include any weapons? What if this effort was a decentralized grass roots activism effort? Assume DPRK was to simply a…

Possibly, the Logan Act[1] could be applied.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act

Post reply on HN