TURECH (CYAN STARFIRES) – Panic, uncertainty, and rioting gripped the capital of the Ossoric Nomarchy today after the announcement from the Extranet Security department of Bright Shadow, ICC, that it intended to revoke the certificate authority status of, and thereby all user and device certificates issued by, the Ossoric Data Vizjery. This action comes in response to the reports, issued five hours ago, that the Data Vizjery had retained private-key information for the certificates it issued for monitoring and “national security” purposes.
Rosith 0xEED4221A, Chief Security Officer at Bright Shadow, stated “We regret the necessity of this action, but we have a duty to consider the integrity of the overall extranet security infrastructure. An ISOP certificate is a promise of security, issued over our word. By violating their contractual obligations as a certificate authority, the Data Vizjery has broken that promise to all their customers and those who interacted with them across the extranet – and so has broken our word. And no-one can be permitted to do that without consequence.”
In response to further questioning, ve added that the absolute guarantees expected of a certificate authority were long-standing corporate policy and spelled out explicitly in the CA contract, and further cited the 58th century case of the Isliar Primacy as evidence that the Vizjery could not avoid being aware of the nature of their actions and the consequences of their revelation.
A subsequent announcement from Bright Shadow informing those domiciled in the Nomarchy that the constellation CA would be permitting individual user and device recertification at cost-of-supply, as a temporary emergency measure, and advising the Nomarchy not to interfere with residents seeking such certificates, did little to stem the uncertainty following this decision. Ossoric indices fell an average of 12,432 points on local markets before trading was suspended.
I imagine there would be quite a few otherwise well-meaning travellers would would surprisedly find themselves on the facing end of the “criminal record including convictions on charges valid under Imperial law” clause for With Justice For All-adjacent reasons.
(For the Earthicans in the audience: as far as I can tell by the definition, a speeding ticket would probably qualify. Many other options that IOTL fall under summary offence laws - including, and not limited to, jaywalking - would almost certainly qualify.)
(There’s a good chance I’m significantly misinterpreting things, but that sounds plausible to me. In practice I imagine it’s probably handled on a case-by-case basis, which the wording of the clause fortunately allows.)
The intended interpretation of including convictions on charges valid under Imperial law is that you were convicted of a crime which you would have been charged with and convicted of, had you committed it in the Empire.
Things like speeding¹ (unless you manage to do so so egregiously as to elevate it from an infraction² to actual reckless endangerment³) or jaywalking⁴, by and large, aren’t even crimes under Imperial law. They’re breaches of administrative regulations or contractual matters between you and the odocorp. Not covered here, unless your perpetual pushing the bounds of the contract leads to a legal breach.
Virtually all of our mala prohibita crimes get thrown out at this point, too, since Imperial law is extremely focused on mala in se. (Those of us subject to systems like the US one where 90%+ of cases are resolved through plea-bargaining to escape stacked extra sentencing may also have cause to appeal on the grounds that our native justice system is, to sum it up, some bullshit.)
And while this is selective application (per the “may” front-loading the clause), they aren’t generally interested in misdemeanors⁵ that are either old, or for which you’ve paid and regret.
So it’s not quite as tricky as all that to navigate this clause. For your average Earthican, probably easier to manage than signing the I-180.
Especially since major roads don’t even have speed limits outside the leftmost lane.
Local jargon for “breach of administrative regulation, vis-a-vis criminal law”.
Or hazardous intoxication, which is the charge for all forms of “X under the influence”. You can’t be charged with reckless endangerment on the grounds that you aren’t able to know that you’re doing so, so instead they charge you with rendering yourself incapable of knowing.
Unlikely, anyway, since they prefer to keep vehicular and pedestrian traffic apart under all circumstances. Might be criminal in the form of “trespass” there, but roads don’t work like that where you’re from, are you?
Which in the local jargon means “minor enough to be handled by summary process, accused’s option”. Also “we don’t take your citizenship for doing this, this time”.