What an utter piece of shit.

  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    He did this with federal funds. And the US hasn’t declared war since, what, WW2? The Rosenbergs were executed for treason, and we never declared war with USSR.

    • orclev@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The Rosenbergs were convicted on espionage charges. They were sending classified info to the USSR. That’s different from treason although it’s related. The funding angle is an interesting question though. It still wouldn’t be treason, but it could qualify as… breach of contract maybe? Not sure exactly what the charge is when the government pays you for a service and you don’t fullfill the service in a satisfactory manner.

      • 4am@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Would this not be espionage? Or would he have to have been acting under the direction of a state actor?

        • orclev@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Espionage would require providing confidential intel to a foreign power. As far as I’m aware he didn’t share any intel, merely disabled the internet service he was providing within key areas. Even then, leaking Unkranian intel to Russia while arguably espionage against Ukraine would likely not qualify. He would need to provide confidential US material to Russia (or another foreign power) for it to be espionage.

          • Questy@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Espionage can also encompass acts of sabotage, there are ways this could qualify if it was American forces affected. It’s also a glaring example of why many countries maintain state share in major defence companies. No idiot scrolling conspiracy theories on Twitter should be able to not only breach operational security, which he clearly was since he knew the operation was underway, but also sabotage it.

    • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      He did not actually do it with federal funds. These were donated Starlink terminals and service was paid for by SpaceX.

      That’s the whole point, the US government allowed civilian technology to be used in war by a foreign government.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Tesla got some preferential loans in 2010, it paid them off by 2013. Now it benefits from buyers of any brand electric car getting subsidies… so, “kind of”?

          SpaceX got government contracts for specific services… which could have been inflated or not, but didn’t include Starlink (at least not officially).

          This is different from direct subsidies like those given to Boeing, which also gets inflated contracts (see NASA’s SLS), but in addition gets preferential tax discounts and lowered export taxes.

      • Ado@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Although a bit irrelevant to the discussion about treason, I had to giggle at the WW2 bit. A simpler statistic would be when the US was not at war.

        • orclev@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          1 year ago

          It’s mostly a semantics game. The US is involved in military conflicts all the time, but those are not officially “wars”, since the US going to war requires Congress to officially declare it. Therefore anytime the US was involved in a military conflict, but Congress did not issue a formal declaration of war, the US was not technically at war. He is correct in that the last time that Congress formally declared war was WW2.

          However, all that said, that’s just silly semantic games, everyone understands that if the US deploys military forces against another nations military forces that is in fact war, and on that metric the US has had many wars since WW2.