Warez Suspect To Be Extradited, After All

usefool writes "After the U.S.'s first extradition request against an Australian man was denied, the U.S. appealed that decision and has now won the right to try Hew Raymond Griffiths in the U.S."

...doesnt look good

[crazyray]

Unfortunately, he will probably be convicted, since the Department of Justiucs has already made agreements with his fellow DrinkOrDie members to shorten their sentences if they testify against him. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109806,0 0.asp [pcworld.com]

Operation Buccaneer

[crazyray]

Here is the DOJ memo announcing this arrest, quite possibly the only document the DoJ has released with both Ashcorft's name on it and the spelling of warez with a "Z" http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2001/December/01_crm_6 43.htm [usdoj.gov]

Re:so let me get this straight....

[damiangerous]

U.S. law now supersedes the written laws of all sovereign nations?

Umm, no. The US had to go to Australia and make their case in an Australian court before an Australian magistrate (and then an Australian appeals court) who ruled based on Australian law.

Re:Scary ... to say the least!

[medelliadegray]

dont be silly.

multibillion dollar corporations dont care about those crimes. therefore, the government does not care.

corrupt form the top down.

government, big business, media (which is sort of BBusiness). their having a wild Menage a Trois, and the people are oblivious to it or just no longer care.

Re:Hello NWO

[Izago909]

You should read the first thread of the original artice.

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100421&cid =8561985 [slashdot.org]

You'd better believe that people would protest the extradition of a U.S. citizen to the Saudi's for criticizing Islam.

Re:so let me get this straight....

[drsmithy]

Umm, no. The US had to go to Australia and make their case in an Australian court before an Australian magistrate (and then an Australian appeals court) who ruled based on Australian law.

And it's relevant to note that AUstralian copyright laws are _extremely_ strict, albeit rarely (fully) enforced. We can't even make backup copies of software we own, mix CDs of music we've bought, or record (most) things off TV without breaking copyright law.

For example, I'm amazed Apple are even able to sell the iPod here in Australia, since there's practically no way it could be used without (technically) breaking the law.

US v Griffiths

[Anonymous Coward]

I've just read the item about the extradition proceedings involving the above. The item is incorrect. All that has happened so far is that a single Judge of the Federal Court of Australia has held that it is POSSIBLE for the Australian Government to extradite Griffiths to the US, if it chooses. If that decision is not reversed on any appeal, then the Australian Government (in the person of the Attorney-General) will decide whether to extradite Griffiths. If the Attorney-General decides to extradite (and sometimes A-Gs haven't, even though they had the power to do so) then Griffiths can challenge the lawfulness of that decision.

Re:the joys of a wired world

[benna]

I'm not advocating trying this kind of crime at the hauge but if one was to do that I don't see why US law has anything to do with it. It would be international law that people would be tried under. I don't much like that idea though because it international law is farther from the people than national law. Its really quite simple. No extradition for crimes commited on Australian soil to the US. The example always given of somebody shooting a bullet across the boarder and killing someone does't work. Murder is in all likelyhood illegal on both sides of the boarder. If its not then there should be no extradition. If it is then the country that the person is in can try them because they pulled the trigger in that country. This same thing can apply to the internet.

Re:Hello NWO

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

"Under the UN charter, a person cannot be tried for an act which was not illegal at the time and place it was committed."

Okay, let's run with the idea that this suspect committed the crime in Australia. Doesn't Australia have copyright laws? Since Australia does, in fact, have copyright laws which are similar to those in the U.S., at the time the crime was committed that act was illegal where the action took place.

"Sure. So an Brit who offends Robert Mugabe, apparently an offence in Zimbabwe, should be extradited to stand trial in Harare."

Only if the UK has an extradition treaty with Zimbabwe, which it seems is not the case [theindependent.co.zw]. [quote: "Secondly, as things stand there won't be any cooperation from countries such as the UK in the bid to extradite the individuals. Zimbabwe is still considered a rogue state."]

I won't address your trollish swipe at the USA and her respect for UN conventions and international treaties. [I don't see how that is even relevant. The Aussies agreed to extradite to the U.S. The U.S. isn't violating some treaty by requesting extradition.]

Re:so let me get this straight....

[Ravadill]

You cannot buy music through iTunes if you live in Australia (you just get a messsage stating tunes are only for sale in the US and Europe.)

Re:Scary ... to say the least!

[mixmasterjake]

Well, your examples don't really apply because you are talking about offenses that are committed and completely contained there in your own country. You're never going to be extradited for committing a crime like that because it has nothing to do with any other country whatsoever.

In the case of the Internet crime it is more complicated because how do you determine *where* the crime was committed? Was the crime committed there in that guy's bedroom, or was it committed on the computer system located on US soil? The DPJ is making the case that the crime was perpetrated in the US. The fact that the guy was physically sitting somewhere else - they are trying to say is irrelevant.

I wonder if that guy had never touched a server in the US - had done all of his warez activities on non-US servers, would he still be extradited?

Well, let me try to explain it

[Sycraft-fu]

The answer to your questions is no. Here's why:

First off, for any of this to happen, there needs to be an extradition treaty between the countries. This means that they mutually agree on the things for which a person can and cannot be extradited to stand trial. Most of the nations you are talking about the US (and likely whatever nation you reside in) does NOT have an extradition treaty with. Even so, most of these aren't offences allowed for extradition under treaties.

So, even in the event that the offence you are talking about is one for which you can be extradited, it needs to be commited against their citizens, in their country. What you do to other citizens of your country is your bussiness. Other countries can't extradite you for that.

So, what the US is claiming here was that the warezing was done to US citizens (or corperations rather, but same basic thing when it comes to extradition law) in the US. How you might ask? Well take a similar situation:

Suppose some asshat in the US decides to start scamming Aussies out of their money. They run a scam like the 419 scams where they just grab the money and go. So the AU PD manages to track down said Asshat in the US, and collect a good amount of evidence proving he's doing it. They then file for extradition. Why? Well even though the asshat is in the US, his crimes are against Australian citizens, in Australia. He's guilty under AU law, and thus should be tried there.

Now cases of software copying are a little tricker, given the nature of the Internet. Did it really happen to US citizens (or coperations) in the US? Well, that is a matter for the Australian courts to decide, and that's what happened. The lower court decided no, it wasn't and thus no extradition. The US appealed, and the higher court has decided that yes, in fact the crime was against a US entity in the US so the extradition will be permitted.

With the Internet, things get a little unclear where jurisdication line lie, and I imagine in 5-10 years we may see some new treaties around this. However as a general rule when you are dealing with matter in your own country, no other country has any jursidiction over them. When you do something in another country, even if by proxy, you can potentially be held liable under that country's law.

Re:Hello NWO

[10Ghz]

You are talking about actions of few UN peace-keepers, not actions of UN as a whole.

Re:Criminals are stupid

[benna]

Its not fast enough when you are using gigabit servers that transfer entire entire movies in just seconds. It probobly would be a good idea to use encryption but it just won't happen. Some servers do use encryption on the ftp connections but that doesn't really work for fxp very well and it makes it take longer to connect to the servers so even that is rarely used. These groups essencially use speak easy security, if you know the right people you can get onto these servers, its not totally effective but its effective at spreading large amounts of warez all over the world very quickly.

Re:so let me get this straight....

[lgftsa]

We can't even make backup copies of software we own, mix CDs of music we've bought, or record (most) things off TV without breaking copyright law.

Yes, we can make copies of software for backup, archival, compatibility and bugfix purposes. That is explicitly allowed under the Copyright Act.

Artistic works, on the other hand(video, audio, etc) may only be duplicated by the National Archives and under very strict circumstances for research purposes by accredited educational institutions.

A software product containing artistic works(Encyclopaedia CDROM for example) would probably be treated as software as long as the product was treated as a whole and not broken down into it's components or the artistic works extracted.

An artistic work containing software(Audio CDROM with data track ala EMI) would probably be treated as (an) artistic work(s).

Hopefully our courts would treat these gray areas with common sense.....

Re:Oh no

[the_riaa]

No, dumbass. Extradition is for when you commit a crime in one country [where the act is illegal], and either flee or reside in another country [where the act may or may not be illegal]. Spitting out gum is illegal in Singapore, but is not illegal in the United States. So if you spit out your gum in the U.S. nobody cares - you're just an asshole [find a trashcan!]. If you did it in Singapore [again, where the act is illegal] AND FLED THE COUNTRY [or if you somehow were able to spit your gun out from your house in America and it landed on the street in Singapore] - then you could be extradited FROM the United States TO Singapore pending an extradition request and hearing by the government of Singapore to be heard in a court of law in the United States. And only if the court approves the request may you be extradited.

I know you were trying to be funny, but you just sounded dumb.

Re:Behold the power of "Free Trade"

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I was involved, but the 'Free Trade' agreements with our country were more of a restrictions agreement.

We had to agree to put tarifs and restrictions on other countries trade rather than any changes to the US part of the agreement. Pretty much all the changes and things we wanted to open a little (eg the protected steel and farming industries) were turned down with a few minor concessions coming out.

The delegates who came over for the discussions had no idea what our policies were, how they came to be and they hadn't even read the bills they wanted changed. They had no idea what the legal situation was.

We did benefit one one way ... now we have incorporated all key areas of the DMCA into our own copyright laws and allow software patenting.

Re:Scary ... to say the least!

[the_weasel]

AFAIK he haven't ever been in US. How could he commit crimes there?

He made himself vulnerable to extradition by obtaining illegal access to computer hardware at an American university, and using that property to perform activity that is illegal both in the USA, and in his home coutry.

I suspect that if he had never made use of an American server, he would probably never have had a real problem. Even then - it sounds like it was a damn close thing and the Australian courts were not in complete agreement on the matter.

To use an example that is the closest parallel I can think of..there are certain medicines that are legal in the USA with a perscription - but illegal to use in Canada.

If I am a US citizen and I willingly and knowingly sell these medicines to Canadian citizens, then I have broken a law in Canada, and likely a trade agreement or treaty between the two countries. There are trade agreements and treaties between Canada and the US that cover how these issues are handled when they arise. Thats what diplomats do dfor a living.

In the interests of protecting trading interests with a foriegn country - you can bet that the US would seriously consider an extradition attempt by Canada in such a case as I have just described. It can be a fine line between medicine and traffiking.

Medium answer to a short question. I hope you found that informative.

Re:Google-osity

[Da Twink Daddy]

I forget where I read it, but it turns out that google's spell-checking isn't based on any real dictionary at all. Instead, it's based on the number of occurances of the word in their indexed pages. I assume they are using something like double metaphone to match the "misspellings" (fewer occurances) with the "correct" spelling (most occurances).

Re:what countries DON'T care about western copyrig

[Afty0r]

So, I figure I can go to a government in which 100% of American bits and bytes are in the public domain, pay the government-owned publishing house a modest fee, and return with 100,000 pages of everything I'd ever want to read

Not likely legal (depends on your jurisdiction).
I live in the UK (which has fairly liberal copyright regs/enforcement by US standards) and carried out research last year into doing reproduction and distribution of old materials (like, decades old, but still not PD in the UK) in an African country which did not have particularly strong or long lasting IP laws.
Turns out it is also illegal to *import* these materials into the UK - whether for personal use or not, they will be confiscated at the airport/port, or if you sneak them in, you can be prosecuted.

Empires are such

[quadormortis]

It is clear: australia has given up one of the basic pillar of its sovereignity: the ultimate right of judgment on its territory. That was the basic right of kings and the basic of right of any form of state afterwards. Obviously, US tries to wash away a very important thing: the borders of the countries and thus the territories of sovereignity by referring to the Internet. It might look as a small thing, but you must consider that territory of sovereignity holds a very special importace and it is a very sensitive area. The ultimate power over a territory is the basic of all rules and laws (even back in the nature) Unfortunately it is obvious that US is doing this not for making the world a better place and making a sci-fi dream true, but for extending its power (and its companies' power) to other countries. I am not that suprised, rather sorrowful. A dream of the XX. century indepedent, soveriegn and equal nations has died. The UN failed. The history continues as it used to be for millenia. It is a bit ironic to see how unprepared your "western world" was to the simple fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the only remaining superpower will behave exactly as superpowers tend to behave: they have the tendency to rule as much of the world as possible and claim as much of others' sovereignty as possible. Here in eastern europe we have seen the soviet (russian) arrogance and how our governments behaved like pet dogs of the soviet communist party (and their secretery general). And you might think it was a terrible dictatorship here. Not as bad as you might think. Just as you might expect from a "colony" of a big empire. You are not allowed to question the empire: that's all. US didn't behave like that at that time, because of PR reasons. At that time the western world had to show that they system is inherently better than the soviet communist crap. And it was at that time. How much we admired the freedom of the western world. And the idea of the _really_ free nations. Now the communists have gone. There is no real danger of (lucrative) communist ideology to conquer the world. Now your western system and the western superpower can start to show its real color. The saddest thing is that it is not necessary evil: it it just the logic of empires. It seems that - unfortunately - the democratic-capitalist western system is not inherently protected against bad governments and arrogant empires. It's just suprising to see how surprised you are that there is nothing new in history. Arrogant, militant governments and empires turn up from time to time to annouce "pax romana" (and "lex romana" obviously) of the new age. By the way, I am sure this decision was completely "legal". Legal systems are always enforced in a way how the current political systems want them to be used. Formally, they are always perfect.

Software Guerilla Warfare

[Mulletproof]

I suspect this might have something to do with it--

Griffiths has been charged in the US with conspiracy to infringe copyright and copyright infringement, for reproducing without authority and distributing software protected by copyright on the internet. The US alleges that Griffiths was the ringleader of an internet group called DrinkorDie which allegedly worked from a computer network at Boston's Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Griffiths helped to control access to the network, though it is not alleged that he made money from his activities."

You're right. The bullet analogy doesn't work. We're talking more along the lines of Guerillas from Kazookiestan crossing the boarder, hijacking a US vehical, commiting a crime against US property on US soil then running back to their HQ. The fact that it was all virtual doesn't make the analogy any less valid. Every single element of the crime- save the originating computer -was commited by hijacking US property to illegally obtain US goods or commit crimes on US ground.

Personally, I'm seeing a very strong case for the US. In the end though, it really doesn't matter who gets him to me. Hackers aren't exactly in short supply. i'm sure they'll find another one.

Re:...doesnt look good

[arose]

I'm not the parent poster, but it seems that the logic is something like this: 1) An author writes a novel, it's good, but does not catch on for some reason. The author gets almost no return from it and stops writing. This is why the creator should get a proper reward. 2) An author writes a novel, it's good, and catches on for some reason. The author gets millions and stops writing because he will recieve royalties for the rest of his life. This is why the creator should get overcompensated.

Re:Hello NWO

[olderchurch]

First of all let's get one thing straight: The International Court of Justice [icj-cij.org] does not try war crimes:

Contentious cases between States
The Parties
Only States may apply to and appear before the Court. The Member States of the United Nations (at present numbering 191) are so entitled.

Only cases between countries. And yes there is the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia" [un.org] and they only prosecute war criminals from the former Yugoslavia.

And then again your arguments are shaky. You say that you and the people in the United States are the victims, but what about the citizens of Madrid [bbc.co.uk] or some other places [bbc.co.uk] in the world.

Also do you really think that OBL would get a fair trail in the US? You are talking about a judge, but what about the jury? I reckon that it would be impossible to find an impartial jury in the US.

Re:...doesnt look good

[Kombat]

Yes, how dare a foreign citizen break U.S. law while never stepping foot inside the U.S. What was he thinking? After this precedent has been set, I hope you don't violate another country's laws on the internet, because it means you could be extradited.

The things he did were illegal in Australia, too. Much as you may wish it were so, this is not a case of him doing something that is perfectly legal in his country, but illegal in the country attempting to extradite him.

So no, this isn't like Sudan coming after my wife (a Canadian-born, Christian caucasian) for having the audacity to walk around Canada without a head scarf (an act which is illegal in Sudan). Rather, this is like Russia coming after me for hacking (sorry, "cracking") into a Russian mainframe and stealing a bunch of government credit cards.

Nice try though. Er... not really.

Partial victory - no order for legal costs

[indaba]

At least he didn't have to pay the other side's legal costs.

"I have come to the view that ... Mr Griffiths ought not be deterred from defending the application by the risk of a potential costs order against him.

Actual judgement here : http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/ 2004/879.html [austlii.edu.au]

This is in itself an important precedent that will be of benefit to any future Mr Griffith's.

On a different point, why is this considered news ? Justice Jacobson handed down his descion two months ago on July 7th !