H-17.8: Terrorism and Piracy Act (Passed)

[Mr. Reactionary]

I forgot to add the date. Its September 14, 2001.

[Mr. Reactionary]

So this amends the AUMF passed after 9/11 that is directed at "global terrorism" to expressly prioritize the rights of Americans except during imminent danger. Hopefully this will prevent future instances of a President drone bombing Atlasian citizens without trial when there is no evidence that they are in the process of carrying out an attack. Al Awaki wasnt sympathetic but I still dont think he and his citizen son should have had their car droned when they were driving to a funeral.

This also redefines "piracy" which is one of the enumerated powers you dont hear much about. There are sometimes issues if a pirate attacks and robs a vessel within the 12 miles of coastal waters, as the LOTST (to which we are NOT a party) would not consider that international piracy, merely robbery under the jurisdiction and laws of the country whose territorial waters it occurs in. If we locked ourselves into that definition, we would be largely powerless to stop most Somali pirate attacks, as they often occur within the 12 mile mark. Clearly Somalia has no means or will to protect against such pirate attacks. The proposed amended definition would allow Atlasia to fight pirates within the 12 miles. A few weaker countries may not like that we enforce international law rules within their arguable territorial waters, however we are not legally bound by the 12 mile rule (since we are not parties to LOTST) and I cant imagine this would come up for most coastal countries since most will try to protect against piracy. Even those countries upset by this though would hopefully be more incentivized to fight piracy themselves if they want to avoid us doing it.