<parrthenon@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:c036a8f0-d126-4789-9251-c94007f27d72@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> BUREAUCRATIC BUNGLING?
>
> <And the reason we did nothing when Fischer renewed the pass****t in
> Switzerland, but rather waited until he was in Japan ?> -- Mike Murray
>
>>Good question. Likely bureaucratic bungling. I don't see how it is
really
> relevant, though.> -- David Kane
>
>>I don't think it was bungling. From what I've read, the Swiss
> wouldn't have held him, but our government folks knew the Japanese
> Japanese would.> -- Mike Murray
>
> FROM TIME MAGAZINE
>
> Fischer spat on a letter from the U.S. Treasury Department telling him
> not to play. He beat Spassky and pocketed a $3.35 million prize, and a
> U.S. federal warrant was issued for his arrest. Faced with a possible
> penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for violating
> America's economic sanctions, he has never returned to the States.
>
> For more than a decade, Fischer crisscrossed the globe, passing
> through Hungary, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea. By
> 2000, Japan and the Philippines had become his primary home bases, and
> he re****tedly reveled in the relative anonymity they afforded him. Yet
> Fischer never truly went into hiding. He traveled using his real
> identity and pass****t, and he twice dared to pass directly under the
> U.S. government's nose. In 1997, Fischer renewed his pass****t at the
> U.S. embassy in Bern, Switzerland, and he returned there in 2003 to
> get 20 new pass****t pages.
>
> Nor was he shy about using the media to express his views. He made 21
> live radio appearances from 1999-2003, mostly in the Philippines.
> During these spots he would rail against the worldwide Jewish and
> American conspiracies supposedly out to ruin him, calling the Jews
> "filthy, lying bastard people" and the U.S. a "brutal, evil
> dictator****p." When the World Trade Center was destroyed on Sept. 11,
> 2001, he announced on Philippine radio: "This is wonderful news. I
> applaud the act ... I want to see the U.S. wiped out."
>
> It's not clear why the U.S. has chosen to pursue Fischer more
> vigorously after all these years. Japan's immigration authorities
> detained him as he attempted to board a flight from Tokyo to Manila,
> acting on a letter from the U.S. State Department, which notified them
> that his pass****t had been revoked in November 2003. John Bosnitch, a
> Canadian journalist and consultant in Japan who has founded an
> organization called the Committee to Free Bobby Fischer, says the
> U.S.'s invalidation of Fischer's pass****t did not follow due process
> because Fischer was not properly notified of the action, nor of his
> right to a 60-day appeal period. As Fischer's alleged crime is not an
> extraditable offense in Japan, the U.S. is trying to get Fischer back
> through what Bosnitch calls a "backdoor extradition" via de****tation.
> Others counter that a U.S. pass****t is government property and must be
> surrendered upon request. "The U.S. government has the right to take
> your pass****t back at any time," says Stephen Givens, a Tokyo-based
> American lawyer. "Fischer can contest that if they screwed up in the
> process, sent notice to the wrong address or whatever. But they can go
> through that procedure again. That's no problem."
>
> In the meantime, Fischer languishes in an immigration detention center
> in the city of U****ku, about 50 km from the air****t where he was
> nabbed. Japan's Minister of Justice is expected to rule in the next
> few weeks on Fischer's appeal against de****tation....
>
> With re****ting by Coco Masters/Tokyo
>
> http://tinyurl.com/6lvl5k
>
>
Interestingly, the only alleged "wrongdoing" of the US governement,
if it can be called that, is that they didn't inform Fischer of his right
to
appeal the pass****t action. (Never mind that no grounds for appeal
have even been offered by the apologists) This in turn is based on
the absurd idea that the U.S. failure to keep track of the whereabouts
of Fischer when in foreign countries denied him "due process".
Moreover even that claim is not sup****ted factually. If you read
Fischer's interactions with his Swiss bank, he clearly lacked
the mental function to understand and reply to correspondence -
it seems quite plausible that Fischer was informed, but, as in the
UBS matter, chose not to understand.
As an observer of human nature, it is always interesting to see
the extremes of illogic that people are willing to employ!
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