Kasidy Yates did nothing illegal
- Thread starter Crewman6
- Start date
She was not delivering bandages.
She was delivering "medical supplies." So, yeah, she was (among, presumably, other items.)
It doesn't really matter where it happened, a state can still punish its citizens for things they do outside of their jurisdiction, so even if Kasidy never committed a single crime in federation space, she could still go to prison for that.
But the entire discussion feels a bit pointless, the show outright tells us she committed a crime and she was sent to prison, and Kasidy never protests that, so it was very obviously illegal.
I think people have deftly moved to say yeah she was breaking laws. Also potentially it could be an Earth law, a Starfleet law or a UFP law.
But also remember they could then flog those medical supplies and get weapons in return. So saying it's purely medical means nothing really.
But also remember they could then flog those medical supplies and get weapons in return. So saying it's purely medical means nothing really.
And medical supplies, as we see throughout the series, can include some dangerous stuff.
But I'll give you this: it wasn't yamok sauce.
The fact that they are medical supplies does not make them innocent, only specialized. militaries have used drugs to increase aggression and combat fatigue on the battlefield. Terrorists have used pharmaceuticals to undermine judgement in recruiting and suicide attacks. And Isis sold medications to fund its activities. And as we seen in DS9, medical supplies, biomimetic gel in particular, and help produce weapons.
So what? In absolutely no system of jurisprudence that's remotely sensible can you be charged with a crime under those circumstances. You sell someone a car and they trade the car for a gun and rob a bank? That ain't your responsibility in any universe.
None of those things are "medical supplies." Yes, there are some drugs that are bad. That's not what was happening here. Biomemetic gel isn't "medical supplies", either.
Shows "tell us" things all the time that we are supposed to accept as reality that don't hold up to scrutiny. That's why we have discussion groups, to have conversations about such things.
What scrutiny? Kasidy doesn't live in a real place that allows us to look up their laws, what the show tells us is all we have, not everything needs to be discussed especially because this would also be illegal in the real world. The US for example has laws against giving material support to terrorist organizations and that includes medical supplies.
Sure, that US law might not have existed when the episode was written but that doesn't really matter, it's still a real life example of such a law existing, so stating that this cannot be illegal is factually wrong because we have literal proof that it can be.
Fine Art is used as a medium for weapons smuggling all the time, and half the James Bond movies too, almost.
What's easiest to shift across borders?
10 tanks and a nuke, or one Picasso?
As god hating communists who do not own anything, Cassidy could never have owned those medical supplies to give them away. It's the affirmed belief in the system, that everything she holds belongs to everyone else first, but especially the government, who is actually everyone, including she.
Biometric Gel is a medical supply, but it could be used to make biogenic weapons, or for illegal replication experiments, or to develop organic explosives.
In fact the more I think about this the fact the higher ups like Sisko can bomb planets and start/encourage wars and get away it, and Dax can go off murdering Klingons, while the little people get jailed for a bit of illegal activity... well nothing has changed from the 21st century!
Kassidy mentions what she is delivering will deal with a viral infection outbreak. We can deduce that both she and Sisko count pharmaceuticals as medical supplies.
Biometric gel could well be used for combatting a viral infection outbreak and making weapons.
They can, and the alliance of Operation Inherent Resolve targeted the resale (among other activities) of pharmaceuticals by ISIS , conducting raids, arrests, and prosecutions.
Similar threads
