[ExI] remote embassies

[Adrian Tymes]

On Oct 23, 2015 1:51 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> So why do we need ambassadors on the ground in dangerous places?

1) Legalities.  Many of those places will not recognize a remote presence
for the purposes of an embassy.  There is no reason that can be worked
around here; their definitions simply preclude teleambassadorship.  (Unless
you can rewrite their definitions in their own minds, which is a gargantuan
memetic effort.)

2) Assurance.  "But everyone knows cyber-anything can be hacked!  American
movies show this all the time!"  Doesn't matter if it's true; having an
all-virtual presence is pretext for people to claim the embassy did or
promised them or gave them anything.  Those caught in their lie can simply
say the embassy must have been hacked and get off without punishment; the
rest get away with forging visas, passports, and other US government
documents.

3) Espionage.  You didn't really think that embassies weren't, from the
start, a safe place for spies to drop their Intel, did you?  Think of them
as a gentlemen's agreement to limit the more extreme actions spies might
otherwise have to take to report back (in the pre-digital age that some of
these more dangerous places are essentially still in), and to not admit
this purpose.
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