[Coldwater Creek]

What laws have the fools broken? Only diplomacy has been abused.

[LibLieSlayer]

That is the problem... Bush can do nothing to stop them unless they sign an agreement or negotiate a Treaty etc. If I were President, they would all be tied up in an IRS audit for the next 65 years... but that's just me.

LLS

[rawcatslyentist]

>"What laws have the fools broken?"

Impersonating an official foreign diplomat?

[skepsel]

I may be wrong but I believe there is a law called the Sullivan Act that forbids private citizens from engaging in personal diplomacy. I heard about it here on FR years ago when Jesse Jackson made one of his periodic grandstanding plays for media attention. Jackson obtainied the release of captive American service members in Yugoslavia or interfered in an African civil war at the behest of well heeled business associates.
House or Senate members may not strictly speaking be private citizens but neither are they accredited diplomatic representatives. Unless aent as informal envoys of the President they lack official standing to conduct the diplomacy of the United States.
The failure of the executive branch departments of State and Justice to act by seizing the passports of those involved (preventing travel) or prosecuting them on their return only serves to encourage this kind of thing.

[LiteKeeper]

Check on something called the Logan Act