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Spanish Galleons Hold Military Secrets ???? shhhh... |
| Name: |
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Pat Clyne |
| Date Posted: |
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Sep 18, 06 - 4:31 PM |
| Email: |
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Atocha@aol.com |
| Website: |
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http://deleted,2 |
| Message: |
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Why does the US government make it so easy for other nations (Spain in particular) to claim ownership of abandoned shipwrecks in our own sovereign waters?
The latest encouragement to do so by our government lies in the Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA) of 2004. This law was written to protect the “National Security” of all sovereign nations relating to “Contemporary” Naval Vessels. In light of the world’s political situation today, it’s understandable that there might be some military secrets aboard a sunken military vessel that other nations would not want to share. But a Spanish Galleon? What kind of secrets could have been so technologically advanced in the 17th century that Spain would feel vulnerable today if we found out? Do you suppose they had an arsenal of WMD so devastating that even today might jeopardize our use of cannonballs in the future?
Of course that’s ludicrous, right? Not really, you see Spain’s taking advantage of that one big loophole in the law to say that it encompasses all of her ship’s in our waters, including the wooden Spanish Galleons. If Congress doesn’t amend it, it could mean that Spain gets to have jurisdiction over large areas of US waters. In Florida’s case that would be devastating to their ongoing marine archaeological research that depends heavily on the private sector to supply them with this ever-dwindling cultural resource.
It also produces another ‘conundrum’ of cultural resource displacement and jeopardizes not only the resource but also the livelihoods of many professional shipwreck salvors. Some of you might be saying, here we go again. Others might wonder, has things like this happened before? Well, just as a refresher, please read “Conundrum” by the late Geoff Chapman below.
And as usual, all comments are welcome.
"Conundrum"
http://www.imacdigest.com/conundrum.html |
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