The extradition of a British citizen from the UK to the USA for hacking into Pentagon computers might be a matter of concern only for the depressingly small minority of us who worry about civil liberties.

However, this is one of a number of recent cases that have important practical implications for the way entrepreneurs do business.

Most serious entrepreneurs are now used to the idea of selling to, and sourcing from, foreign jurisdictions, especially via the internet.

Despite the prosperity generated by this global trade, the authorities of jurisdictions with restrictive laws have become more aggressive about enforcing those laws against residents of jurisdictions where laws are more liberal.

This means entrepreneurs must be careful about their personal movements. The head of an internet gambling operation, based offshore where it was perfectly legitimate, was arrested when his flight landed in the USA, where gambling laws are astonishingly hypocritical.

One might imagine one is perfectly safe in the country in which one is a citizen in good standing, so long as one obeys the laws of that country.

Yet cases like that of the NatWest Three – discussed in an earlier blog – and this Pentagon hacker show how bureaucrats are increasingly able to use wide-ranging extradition powers, agreed on the usual pretext of “fighting terrorism”, to get their own back on overseas residents and foreign citizens who irritate them.

These extradition powers are ridiculously one-sided: Britain cannot get a strong suspect in a murder case extradited from Russia but feels obliged to send computer nerds to America on demand.

Entrepreneurs must understand that being both legally and physically offshore no longer affords the protection that it should.