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While political sovereignty is our interest, many past projects have taken advantage of the ocean’s freedom in other ways. They demonstrate that “hacking the system” really can work. it’s important to have this empirical evidence to show that there our ideas are not just based on theory. Many political movements have failed because they misunderstood the difference between theory and practice, words and actions, vision and reality.
{ If you have any similar examples of using international waters to increase freedom, please let us know }
Anyone who has been on a cruise ship knows that gambling in international waters continues to the present day. Its history near the United States, however, is a bit rocky:
Earl Warren…decided to advance his career by declaring war on the gambling interests. The operators responded by moving the casinos onto ships keeping the old mother-ship stations off the coast. The first reaction of Warren was just to go out and break up the casinos anyway, never mind that his lawful authority ended at the territorial limit. This is yet another caution to new-country organizers not to place overmuch faith in the written law.
However, the operators then went into Federal court…Roosevelt’s Democratic Federal Regime wasn’t very interested in helping him with his crackdown…when World War II broke out. The “war emergency” and ensuing near-panic on the West Coast were used as an excuse to shut down the ships summarily. After the war, a Federal law was finally passed making it illegal for a United States citizen or resident to own a gambling ship, or for anyone to transport people between the United States and a gambling ship…such a ban could likely be defeated on a challenge. But then other measures to harass the ship doubtless would be taken. In any case, with the spread of legalized casinos onshore, the long-term prospects for casino ships appear limited.
Despite this pessimisstic outlook, gambling cruises are still an active business. For example, a 2002 article on gambling in the southern US reports: “FLORIDA: Numerous gambling cruise vessels, ranging from ships carrying 1,800 passengers to yacht-size boats carrying 150, sail from the East and West coasts into international waters where gambling is permitted. The boats offer roulette, blackjack, craps, video poker and slots, with some of the larger cruise ships offering additional games.” [McBee2002]
The offshore pirate radio movement is interesting both for its own sake and in relation to the ideas of seasteading. A summary appears in Strauss:
In the 1960’s, a new form of offshore activity emerged. Commercial radio as known in the United States didn’t exist in Europe at the time. With few exceptions, all that was to be heard were staid government stations. Then a ship named Veronica dropped anchor just off the Dutch coast, with a transmitter beaming programing filled with the latest popular music. Advertisers eagerly bought up all the available time at premium rates, and imitators soon followed in the Scandinavian and British markets…At first, there was considerable violence between ships; however, the practice of maintaining 24-hour watches soon reduced that greatly…
The governments of Europe were outraged, and applied the pejorative term “pirates” to the broadcasters, a term with which they weren’t entirely unhappy - due to its romantic connotations. Attempts were made to jam the ships’ transmissions, but the public outcry was too great…International agreements were entered into to ban broadcasting from ships, but the African country of Sierra Leone chose to offer its flag as a flag of convenience rather than subscribe to the treaties…
The British finally knocked their offshore broadcasters off the air by banning advertising on them by firms doing business in the United Kingdom…then the coup de grace was delivered: the opening of popular music stations on land.
Various snippets from another chronicle of pirate radio’s colorful history help fill in more detail:
“badly needed a way to break the ‘payola’ monopoly enjoyed by the ‘big four’ recording companies Decca, Philips, EMI and Pye.”
“Only three weeks after it started the pirate station had an estimated 7 million listeners “
“Tragedy occurred at Red Sands fort on December 16th when RADIO INVICTA co-owner Tom Pepper, engineer Martin Shaw and disc jockey Simon Ashley were drowned in very bad circumstances following the capsizing of their launch after having delivered supplies to the station “
“The start of 1965 saw some ‘big guns’ lining up against the pop pirates when, on January 22nd, the governments of Belgium, France, Greece, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and Britain signed a Council of Europe Agreement that not only banned broadcasts ‘on board ships, aircraft or any other floating or airborne objects’ but also banned anyone from those countries from supplying the pirates with materials, supplies or equipment. The stations were forced to obtain new sources of supply from either Holland or Spain, neither of whom had been party to the agreement…Caroline’ was also in the happier position of being able to obtain supplies from Dublin or even the Isle of Man as the Manx government were reluctant to ratify legislation against the pirate ship due to the trade and tourism she brought to the island. “
“On May 12th at 5p.m. the entire Beatles ‘Sergeant Pepper’ was played by Radio London, two weeks before its official release date, despite the fact that no promotional versions had been issued by EMI. The origin of the music has never been explained, although Paul McCartney’s house had been burgled a fortnight earlier and among the items taken were two proof pressings of the disc….”
“At midnight on 14th August 1967, The Marine etc, Broadcasting (Offences) Act came into force, which effectively banned all U.K. subjects from being involved with offshore broadcasting within territorial waters and rendering all the pirate radio station operators and personnel open to prosecution as soon as they came within the ‘3 mile limit’…RADIO VERONICA, being off the Dutch coast, was unaffected by the British Act but had its own problems in the Seventies when the Dutch government finally got around to passing a similar law…The last of the legendary Sixties offshore pirates still operating in its original form, RADIO VERONICA, finally succumbed to the Dutch Marine Broadcasting Act on August 31st 1974. “
The history of pirate radio is fascinating and involved. While we’ve only briefly touched on it here, you’ve heard enough about pirate radio and gambling ships to see a common life cycle for such ventures. Government regulation creates a market. An offshore provider springs up to serve that market, and at first enjoys tremendous success. New regulations attempt to limit the industry, with mixed success. Finally, the onshore industry opens up - not as open as the pirates, but with a small enough difference that the extra costs and difficulties of offshore operation render the pirates uncompetitive.
We’d like to point out that if the offshore provider’s goal was to stay in business and make money forever, being co-opted like this indicates failure. But if the goal was a social movement like increasing freedom, it is at least partial success. We’d consider it a victory if building seasteads becomes unattractive because traditional governments become more dynamic and flexible. However, we think this is unlikely because of some key advantages of water over land which we’ll talk about in the next section.
Although pirate radio history is definitely relevant, there are some important differences between pirate radio and seasteading. First, note that these broadcasts targeted sovereign territory, infringing the government’s right to control the signals on its land. This is a much more questionable activity than seasteading, and more likely to generate a strong reaction. Also, the government cracked down by making it illegal to advertise on pirate radio ships or sell them supplies. Advertising doesn’t work unless you know what the product is, thus it’s easy to crack down on. Also pirate radio ships were not in the least self-sufficient. So stronger economic levers were available against this business than will be for opponents of seasteading.
This was an internet server business run on Sealand, offering secure colocation facilities without government regulation. While it’s not clear exactly why the business failed, there are a number of strong possibilities.
In the beginning, they got a fair amount of publicity as a “data haven”. However, they had to compete with small countries around the world also eager to profit from a low-regulation environment. They were founded just in time for the dot-com crash and associated global recession. A few years later, when the War on Terrorism got going, the owners of Sealand become worried about anti-terrorist blowback. Furthermore, as a somewhat amateur venture, Havenco was plagued with business problems, at least according to cofounder Ryan Lacky, who spoke at Defcon about the experience [Defcon_Havenco].
From his report, most of the time was spent dealing with the large amount of press stemming from a Wired magazine cover article, rather than on sales and customer service. The business was disorganized, lacking proper capital, and displaying a much better face to the world than the actual situation. Eventually, the business problems, and the issues between Sealand and Havenco led to the end of the company.
Many of these are important points for prospective seasteaders. If they are building a business, not just a home, it needs to be run like a business - which means a reasonable amount of financing and business experience for the job at hand. The difficulties in being reliant on the whims of Sealand’s owners is an example of why it is better to find solutions that don’t depend on a cooperative host country. And on a more optimistic note, HavenCo found it quite easiy to get a huge amount of publicity, which would have been invaluable if they’d had the other pieces in place.
The reason we include the busines here, rather than among failed projects, is that nowhere in that list of reasons is “significant interference from other states”. Havenco successfully hosted online gambling sites through an internet connection to the UK, less than 10 miles away, which would not have been legal in that country. They were left alone, and not because they had a navy to match the UK’s (an amusingly laughable fantasy), or because no one had heard of them (quite to the contrary!). Instead they just chose a business they could get away with and a location with reasonable historical precedents to be independent.
Whether or not one agrees with their views, the pro-choice Dutch project [Women On Waves[(http://www.womenonwaves.org/index_eng.html) is a good example of the potential for using international waters for political freedom. One of the founders of WoW had been a doctor on board the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior, and was influenced by offshore pirate radio. They traveled to Ireland in 2001 and Poland in 2003. In their own words:
Women on Waves is a non-profit organization concerned with women’s human rights. Its mission is to prevent unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortions throughout the world.
Every year 20 million abortions are performed under illegal and unsafe conditions, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 70,000 women annually. In response to this medical calamity, Women on Waves has developed a mobile gynecological unit, the ‘A-portable’. It can easily be loaded onto a ship, which enables it to travel to wherever it is needed worldwide. The ‘A-Portable’ can also travel by truck allowing it to go to countries where reproductive health services are legal but largely unavailable, for example due to war.
With a ship Women on Waves can provide contraceptives, information, training, workshops, and safe and legal abortion outside territorial waters in countries where abortion is illegal . Working in close cooperation with local organizations, Women on Waves wants to respond to an urgent medical need, empower women to exercise their human right to reproductive health and legal, safe abortion and draw public attention to the consequences of unwanted pregnancy and illegal abortion.
An Australian doctor proposed a similar plan in 2000 and 2001 for a “euthanasia ship” to legally help end the lives of terminally ill patients [Batty2001]. However nothing further appears to have been done.