What nobody seems to get here is that the suit itself is irrelevant. An interesting toy, but really a sideline.
The big kahuna is the magic limitless energy thingamajig in Stark’s chest (that he built in a cave with a box of scraps). Get that, and the suit is cake, but really it would result in limitless clean cheap energy for everything you could imagine.
If it can be built in a cave with scraps, than it can’t be difficult to mass produce on the cheap. The world would never be the same afterward. Once the world has that tech, why would you need the suit? What would be left to fight over?
I think it’s clear from the movies that arc reactors in general are a publicly-known tech, but impractical for unknown reasons (in the first movie, the Stark factory is powered by one, but Tony says that it’s mostly just as a publicity stunt). What’s revolutionary about the one Tony wears in his chest is that it’s so small.
At a guess, the palladium needed to build an arc reactor is worth more than the value of the power generated over a reasonable device lifespan. Or the super-secret new element he develops, but I’m sure that’s even more expensive.
Well, if he’s flying around taking out bad guys, the situation becomes less like if the president of Boeing built a super-copter that he was cruising around with for kicks, and more like the president of Boeing building a super-copter and personally used it to go kill people (albeit terrorists and criminals, outside of the United States).
You do realise that what you’re describing sounds pretty much like a military dictatorship? do you really think that the US, even in Marvel-world, is such a country?
There’s the matter of the Constitution, which has been held to prevent exactly this kind of unilateral seizure from happening, in the Steel-Seizure Case:
Wired a few years ago had a story about the guy who built a high-quality fiber-optic splice unit; then found the government had appropriated the tech and was using it without paying him royalties, which apparently the government has the right to do…
(Hmmm, which agency would have a need for fibre optic connectors that would work in deep oceans, and what would they connect to and eavesdrop on?)
Basically, if he did any damage or harm at all, then IronMan is in possesion of a dangerous weapon, and the device can be seized for the duration of the investigation. If he resists arrest or obstructs justice, then all the more reason to haul his butt in and seize whatever dangerous goods he possesses. A hockey stick can be considered a dangerous weapon if the perp uses it the wrong way; a flying suit? Lethal!!
Heck, he’s definitely violating the various FAA ordinances about flying, not licensing an aircraft and having it inspected, no airworthiness certificate or registration numbers, flight plans and air traffic control, no transponder, violating minimum flying height over built up areas and not filing flight plans; if it’s classified as a rocket, there are even more restrictions…etc.
Is it emitting electrical interference, should the FCC come after him too? What elements are being used, should the EPA be investigating any pollution issues? Was the cave zoned for commercial research? Did he have a building permit to wire the cave with elctricity?
Once the authorities sink their teeth into something, fairness or justice or truth has very little to do with it. Just ask Martha Stewart or the DUke Lacrosse team…
True, but again, in the movie he’s not such an easy fish to catch. He’s a major defense contractor and a hugely important person on his own, with incredible wealth and fame to play with. That’s not someone you just want to piss off casually.
The slightest HINT that he’s using the resources of his company, and the government will seize the company, freeze all bank accounts, etc. How many of his minions will follow him to the death/life imprisonment? Without the ability to collect pay?
Take the lesson of Osama to heart. Once the government has made its major mission your capture, the only way to survive is to rough it in the most obscure locations in the world completely off the grid. Of course it’s a lot easier to hide a 6-foot human than a brightly colour flying rocket-man.
(I always wondered why reporters didn’t just stake out progressively closer vantage points to the bat-cave to see where that car dissappeared to…)
Not an Ironman fan… Haven’t seen the movie(s) yet. He built that thing in Afghanistan, and then it ended up in the USA? At the very least, it can be seized for being imported without being declared; there’s probably some export of technology laws they can get him on if he did not have a permit to use that technology (properly supervised) in a hostile third-world country… Probably nail him on terrorist/WMD charges too.
Once the prosecutors find an excuse, the law is sufficiently complex they can find something, anything to nail you on. Even the fanciest lawyers in the world will not prevent the goevrnment from tossing you butt in jail and seizing/freezing your assets for several years until the trial process is over…
Would not it be considered a munition? I remember some guy who created an encryption algorithm that was considered a munition and the US did not allow its export so he had to print the source code in a book and sell it
The first suit, he built in a cave in Afghanistan (Vietnam in the original comic book), where he was being imprisoned by a warlord and forced to make weapons for him. He used the suit to escape captivity, but then was picked up by regular US forces and flown home on military flights. In the process of his escape, the suit was damaged irreparably; any pieces of it he brought home would have been only souvenirs. Once home, he used the better resources of his personal workshop to build more sophisticated suits, and it’s those that he uses for most of the movie. So no, none of his suits were imported in any sense.
Even if this was legal, it would be a disasterous idea with horrible PR consequences. First, it raises the possibility that Stark will refuse, and there’s no guarantee that you can make him hand over the technology. Second, regardless of whether you succeed or fail, you then have to explain to the public why you aren’t the bad guy for using the US military to betray and rob an all-American industrialist turned all-American hero.
One thing about crypto stuff is that such things were already considered to be munitions before PGP, etc. came around. The technology in the suit hadn’t existed before Stark invented it and isn’t illegal until a legislature with sufficient jurisdiction outlaws it.
Most of the technology in the suit did exist, just not put together in that way. The Jericho missiles that Stark was demonstrating (the reason he was in Afghanistan in the first place) incorporated repulsor tech. It’s quite plausible that the government might have classified repulsors as munitions.
The point is there are so many nit-picking laws that the government can come after you about - they can almost arrest you for sneezing if they want.
If you resist, justifiably or not… well the David Koresh-Waco thing comes to mind. Whether the original action is justifiable, debatable or not, once you resist arrest they have more that enough grounds to use full force against you and seize everything you’ve used or might use until the investigation (and trial, if you live) are complete.
Only in the fantasy world of comics and Hollywood can a person survive against the determination of the government without disappearing into the remote caves of Waziristan. They have all the time and all the resources to eventually find you…
Bull. people do it all the time, and the government demanding legal expropriation of Stark’s assets would create a giant legal nightmare. Sure, they might win. But they also could easily lose in court, and even if they won there was no guarrantee they’d actually get his suits.
No, but then the Iron Man scenario is pretty unusual, and the Steel Seizure case is completely irrelevant.
In this case what you have is someone who has more or less stumbled upon a weapon that threatens the sovereignty of any state that does not possess it. The Iron Man power/suit combo is ridiculously powerful. It would be like allowing a private citizen to own a nuclear weapon or a fleet of super hover laser tanks.
The USA - or any other country on the face of the earth - would find some legal pretense to take it. The security threat is simply intolerable.
The US government does not seize assets or intellectual property because it is militarily useful. Instead, they pay you to produce it for them. There’s a whole defense industry built on the concept of the government paying you to create devices useful to the military.
If someone created a revolutionary weapon, the government would not seize it, they say “nice demonstration, here’s your multi-billion-dollar contract to produce more.” And in the real world, anyone smart enough to invent the superweapon would be smart enough to accept that contract.
