UK High Court 'Perma-Bans' Efforts to Extradite Lauri Love to the US (arstechnica.com) 315
The U.K.'s High Court will not send Lauri Love to face trial in the U.S. for hacking government computer systems. Instead they've issued a final refusal to overturn Love's successful appeal of his extradition, Ars Technica reports, "effectively ending the extradition effort permanently."
Love was originally arrested in the UK in October of 2013 after using an automated scanner to locate servers within a large range of IP addresses for SQL injection and ColdFusion vulnerabilities and then breaching vulnerable systems and installing Web shells to give him remote administrative-level access. He allegedly managed to compromise servers belonging to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Army, the Federal Reserve, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Love's attorneys fought the extradition on the grounds that Love -- who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, severe depression, and antibiotic-resistant eczema -- would not get appropriate medical attention in a U.S. prison and would be at risk of suicide if he faced the potential 99-year prison term associated with the charges...
The U.S. had already essentially dropped efforts to extradite Love, but the ruling by the High Court now sets legal precedent that may bar future extraditions of British citizens on hacking charges. In a statement e-mailed to Ars, Naomi Colvin -- acting director of the Courage Foundation, an organization that has assisted Love in his extradition appeal -- said that as a result of the ruling, "there is now very little prospect of any British hacker ever finding themselves in the same position as Lauri Love or Gary McKinnon. Fifteen years of terrible public policy in which British hackers were left open to the vindictive instincts of US prosecutors have now been brought to an end."
Lauri Love told the site that with this ruling, "The era of the U.S. Department of Justice as world police is over."
The U.S. had already essentially dropped efforts to extradite Love, but the ruling by the High Court now sets legal precedent that may bar future extraditions of British citizens on hacking charges. In a statement e-mailed to Ars, Naomi Colvin -- acting director of the Courage Foundation, an organization that has assisted Love in his extradition appeal -- said that as a result of the ruling, "there is now very little prospect of any British hacker ever finding themselves in the same position as Lauri Love or Gary McKinnon. Fifteen years of terrible public policy in which British hackers were left open to the vindictive instincts of US prosecutors have now been brought to an end."
Lauri Love told the site that with this ruling, "The era of the U.S. Department of Justice as world police is over."
Same in reverse. (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than the precedence reinforcement (good thing), I don't see much news here. The US and UK would have done the same as the other if the situation was reversed. The guy didn't kill any one. And even if he had, the conclusion would have been the same both ways if he faced execution.
Sure it sets a precedent... (Score:2)
...sounds like it's open season on UK government computers for US hackers, or really any hackers.
I mean, if eczema (seriously?) is a medical condition for which one can be protected from extradition, I don't see that any punishment is much of a likelihood?
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I mean, if eczema (seriously?) is a medical condition for which one can be protected from extradition, I don't see that any punishment is much of a likelihood?
Putin will soon announce that Russia's entire hacking community suffers from eczema, and thus are immune to US prosecution attempts.
What Would Have Happened If He Had Hacked Britain? (Score:2)
Re:What Would Have Happened If He Had Hacked Brita (Score:4, Informative)
Balance (Score:2, Interesting)
Breaking into a foreign government's computer systems - perfectly fine under UK law.
Teaching your dog to give a nazi salute as a joke - you will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Looks like the UK has it's legal system in order.
Re:Balance (Score:5, Informative)
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
His crime wasn't hacking, it was embarrassing the U.S. Gov't.
There is NO excuse for having your public IP address space exposing well known, script-kiddie flaws. Every one of those Federal Agencies has teams of people who are responsible for securing their systems, not to mention external contractors performing penetration tests.
He didn't do anything creative, just run common scanners against a wide IP space, and run point-and-click tools. If he found all that with so little effort, you can bet others did,
Tha's insightful? (Score:2, Interesting)
Really, that comment is "insightful"? Do you deserve to have your house vandalized or robbed bcause you haven't locked every single door and window?
UK takes care of its citizens (Score:4, Interesting)
UK takes cars of its citizens. Protects them from extradition, gives them tax-supported healthcare. The US? Land of medical bankruptcies, guns for any yob who can fog a mirror, killings by police, and excessive prison sentencing. US would have been better off if the "founding fathers" had been shot as traitors and it had remained a British colony. Britain even ended slavery 30 years before the US did.
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Assange (Score:2)
Assange is still hiding out because he fears extradition to the U.S. This may prove that was never the case.
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Not likely:
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
After arriving in Sweden, Assange could be interrogated for weeks in effective solitary confinement for an alleged crime in another country, without a lawyer if they don't charge him first. As Assange haters keep reminding everyone, he hasn't been openly indicted by the USG. People have confessed to murders they didn't commit in less time, just to get the interrogation to stop. Sweden could easily take of this by promising
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Sweden could easily take of this by promising not to extradite him to the US
But those charges were dropped...from what I can tell he's no longer under investigation by the Swedish.
https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]
U.S. is the world's bully (Score:4, Interesting)
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"A citizen of your country did something that is illegal in both of our countries which affected institutions in our country. Send him here so that we can prosecute him for the crimes he committed." Bullying?
Unless you can also point to some evidence that the US tried to lean on the UK in other areas to persuade them to extradite the indicted individual, you'll have a hard time selling this as "bullying."
IOW... (Score:5, Funny)
"The era of the U.S. Department of Justice as world police is over."
In other words, extradition is an ex-tradition.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Where did he do the crime? Why should be be sucked into the nastiest jurisdiction that his packets passed through? It's a genuinely unresolved issue, legally.
2) The huge asymmetry between extradition in either direction, coupled with the posturing of US officials, has reduced willingness by everyone including the courts to see US prosecution as likely to be fair and proportionate. Eventually posturing has consequences.
Rgds
Damon
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1) It doesn't matter "where" he did the crime. Extradition treaties usually only require that the act be criminal in both countries. I would suggest it matters more where the prosecutors have bothered to build a case against him. The court's ruling suggests that no British prosecutor has bothered to do it, and so a fair trial could only be performed in the US, where there is interest in seeing justice done.
Your strawman about jurisdictions that his packets passed through is ridiculous. The US would like
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) I'm not even going to discuss this as it's clearly utter bollocks; two seconds of thought should, if you aren't a swivel-eyed rightard, reveal why that is the case.
2) The US does not extradite its citizens except in very rare circumstances, even to countries with better-functioning criminal justice systems (i.e. most western democracies, though the UK's is increasingly creaking at the seams). Nobody requests extradition from the US because there are only so many times you can ask the same question, getting the same answer, before you admit it's pointless and stop doing that. Definition of insanity, etc.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody requests extradition from the US because there are only so many times you can ask the same question, getting the same answer, before you admit it's pointless and stop doing that. Definition of insanity, etc.
Then it's time to drop those extradition treaties as nonfunctional and dangerous to your own citizens.
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Bullshit...
US Requests
41 requests to extradite UK Citizens from the UK, of which 28 were agreed.
21 requests to extradite USA Citizens from the UK, of which 12 were agreed.
UK Requests
25 requests to extradite UK Citizens from the USA, of which 20 were agreed.
8 requests to extradite USA Citizens from the USA, of which 5 were agreed.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Plenty of IRA members - murderers & actual terrorists when the word meant something - fled to the US and were never sent back.
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The flow of advanced weapon systems and support to Ireland stopped.
Every phone number and call in and out of Ireland was collected on. All international communications between Ireland to the USA.
Voice prints too when that was still an advanced science in real time.
UK collection was not just between the UK to Ireland but for all of Ireland. The USA was just another nation to track calls back to.
Re: We can't send him to trial... (Score:4, Interesting)
Plenty of IRA members - murderers & actual terrorists when the word meant something - fled to the US and were never sent back.
Some IRA members weren't extradited because they claimed that their crimes were political in nature, and the US along with other countries (including the UK) has a prohibition on extradicting people for political crimes.
Ironically enough the US rules on how to handle the potential extraditions of political crimes were at least partly based on an analysis of UK case law.
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Re: We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Informative)
But the GP is talking about actual terrorists, people who were directly involved in killing others, and yes, he's right, they weren't extradited.
I, also, was referring to IRA members who where actual terrorists. The fact that they killed people does not mean that their crime was not political.
No, there's no precedent in UK case law that says it's not murder if you did it for political reasons
Of course not. There is UK case law that says you can't be extradited if you committed murder under certain circumstances for political reasons. The political incidence test as used by the US and UK was defined in In Re Castioni [uniset.ca], where the court found:
that the offence which the prisoner had committed was incidental to and formed a part of political disturbances, and therefore was an offence of a political character within the meaning of the statute, and the prisoner could not be surrendered, but was entitled to be discharged from custody
The accused in the case had, in fact, been charged with murder. There was little doubt that he was guilty. Yet the English court found that he could not be extradited as his crime was political in nature.
The US applied the same standard to IRA terrorists, which led to the interesting conclusion in Quinn v Robinson that an IRA member who committed murder in England could be extradited, but if he had committed the same act in Northern Ireland he would not be extraditable.
The US and UK later negotiated some revisions to the extradition laws, which have placed tighter limits on what constitutes political crimes. However, during the timespan we are discussing, refusing to extradite some IRA terrorists was consistent with both US and UK extradition laws.
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And this particular case was a political crime, which means the prohibition on extradition is not only lawful but required by British and American law. Correct?
Re: We can't send him to trial... (Score:3)
And this particular case was a political crime, which means the prohibition on extradition is not only lawful but required by British and American law. Correct?
Political crimes are typically ones committed against your own nation or an occupying power. He could have tried arguing that his crimes were political; it would have been an interesting defence without any precedent of which I'm aware. I doubt it would have worked, but it would have been interesting.
In any event, he didn't make that argument ergo it doesn't apply in this case. Instead he chose the "Americans are mean" defence, which has apparently served him well.
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Not only did the US harbour murderers and terrorists, it financed them. The US government, during Reagan's time, actively sent money and arms to terrorist groups in Ireland to murder British civilians.
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The US prison system systematically violates basic human rights. There was even a prison that was on total lock-down for 23 years. The US justice system is rigged and based on extensive intimidation and plea bargains.
In the essence, there is zero justice in the US and it's ridiculous to even ask for the extradition of anyone. Extradition treaties are not automatic processes, they are decided case by case, and human rights issues and the expectation (or suspected lack of) a fair trial plays a substantial rol
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The US prison system systematically violates basic human rights. There was even a prison that was on total lock-down for 23 years. The US justice system is rigged and based on extensive intimidation and plea bargains. [etc etc]
Then this guy should have thought twice about doing something that risked extradition there. An analogy is "I should not be punished for murdering someone because - you know - the punishment for murder is really really stiff"
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We don't draw and quarter people for shoplifting, even though that would likely be a deterrent. Why? Because the punishment has to fit the crime.
Saying something should have been a deterrent is not an argument for excessively harsh punishment.
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Shocking news (to some): Indiscriminately committing the same crime dozens of time can increase your eligibility for long prison terms. I know it's hard for Brits to understand, but addition works.
And in other news to mindless trolls, almost no convict in the US gets anywhere close to the maximum possible term, in large part because terms for multiple crimes are often served concurrently rather than serially.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is, the US encourages plea bargaining, and punishes people who dare exercise their right to a fair trial (if they lose) disproportionately. The reduced sentences you mention are often only given with a plea bargain.
Picture this: you're falsely accused of a crime and too poor to afford a good lawyer. Would you rather risk 30 years in prison, no parole, at trial, or will you plead guilty to a lesser felony, do a year in prison, and come out marked as a felon for life. Many people are pressured into doing the latter even if they're not actually guilty of anything.
The US "justice" system is evil, and generally run by evil/corrupt people.
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Unfortunately, you are correct.
But it gets worse. Defendants who are poor have two choices - borrow heavily with zero possibility of return and zero possibility of paying back because the media has blackened their name, or get a drunk, sleep-deprived public defender who may or may not turn up. A situation the States and the Feds deliberately contrive by hiring too few of them and working them too hard.
The US has a kangaroo court system that is a mockery of justice, and the prison system is notorious for mur
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not if we prosecuted fewer crimes. Start ignoring simple drug possession, even sale among adults. Moral laws, like laws against gambling or online gambling, out the window. Same goes for laws against sex between consenting adults of sound mind. Public drinking? Same thing.
Live and let live, let people do what they want to with their own bodies and minds. Getting rid of crimes where people are only hurting themselves would go a long way towards freeing up the courts to give everyone a fair trial in more serious cases.
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I was using a drastic example, obviously.
I'll root for a non-violent criminal that needles and pokes a government over the government itself any day. I have a firm policy of rooting for the underdog.
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It's true, the US system isn't the worst. It's the fourth worst. Even Russia and Iran have better prisons, and that's scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Who cares where the servers are, the US Government wants the Microsoft data despite the servers being in Ireland. Does it give a flying f--- where the servers are? No, of course not!
Besides, this was an overtly political act and the US and UK don't extradite for political acts. Since the US doesn't deport for such things, it has no right of expectation.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lauri Love didn't murder anyone. He hacked into US servers, because he wanted to find out whether UFO conspiracies are true. He didn't even do anything nefarious with the data he found or publish it.
See that's the problem with you people, you're mentally insane when it comes to punishment and revenge. You miss all reasonableness and adequacy of punishment considerations. You're even fine with a systematic prison rape culture, but God forbid somebody shows a nipple on TV. You want everyone to be extradited swiftly to the US if it suits your agenda well, and at the same time threaten to invade the International Court of Justice with US military in case a US citizen might be accused there for crimes against humanity.
In a nutshell, you're a bunch of fucking hypocrites.
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not quite true (Score:5, Informative)
Re: We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is, other nations are starting to realize that our court system has turned into some sort of Kafkaesque parody of justice. We have a Stalin-sized Gulag, famed for its state-sponsored regime of anal rape. Almost everyone in the Gulag was coerced into a false confession in a process euphemistically called "plea bargaining". No self-respecting nation would surrender their citizen to be ground up by that sort of infernal meat grinder.
Shame on our judicial oligarchy. They are making us look like some sort of North Korean dystopia.
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Exactly -- and with Trump and the Evil Elf in office, the only meaningful reforms are happening on the state level, not Federal. i.e. marijuana legalization, bail reform, sentencing guideline reform.
Holder and Obama were stepping in the correct direction, but sadly they've been replaced by a bunch of aged reactionaries.
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The Americans aren't interested in justice, they're interested in revenge. That's why the prison system has one of the highest murder and rape rates in the world. Far as I know, only Australia, China and North Korea are worse. That's not justice, that's sickness. You need treatment.
He's also only accused and has a right to a fair trial. One where justice is not only done, it is seen to be done. That is impossible in the US. Nobody gets a fair trial in the US, we all know that. Fix the system and maybe peopl
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The UK refrained from even investigating organized child-rape gangs because they were run by certain politically favored groups. Then the UK had to put a hold on every rape case in the country and review them all after four cases in a short span fell apart because the police or prosecutors had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. Stop pretending that your chamber pot smells of roses.
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Nobody gets a fair trial in the US, we all know that.
* Citation needed.
The US court system definitely has its issues, but you're drastically overstating the situation. Lots of people get fair trials in the US. It has an independent judiciary and lots of guarantees for people accused of crimes (right to a jury trial, right to a lawyer, right to examine the evidence against you, etc.). You weaken your argument when you distort the facts.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone needs to remind the Brits that if Love didn't want to do the time, he shouldn't have done the crime
He can do the time in Britain where he lives and was located when he committed the crime. That sounds much more fair than sending him to a crazy country that locks up a startlingly large fraction of its own population.
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He'll only do time in Britain if officials there can be bothered to prosecute him, which so far they have not even started to do. Since the Brits were not prosecuting him, the US stepped up to the plate.
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If somebody empties your bank accounts, empties your retirement accounts, and misappropriates all your title to real property, should they stay free simply because they didn't commit a violent crime (and are mentally unstable and have eczema)?
Stop being an apologist for a script kiddie. It's not a good look, and doing it effectively is apparently beyond your capability.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Crimes are not defined by stealing something of value or profiting from illegal activities. For example, part of the UK's 1872 Licensing Act makes it illegal to be drunk in a pub -- no theft or profit needed. Similarly, part of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 makes it illegal in designated areas to not tell the government who "key-holders" are for premises with audible alarm systems -- no theft or profit needed.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't come to America, where the US police have backlogs of un-processed evidence from rape cases but are more than happy to go after people for small quantities of drugs. Even if they aren't drugs -- recent case where some dumb cop arrested someone for suspicion of drug possession, which turned out to be donut crumbs.
I'd take a higher rate of theft and even terrorism over a "justice" system that abuses its own citizens and tries to abuse people worldwide.
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some dumb cop arrested someone for suspicion of drug possession, which turned out to be donut crumbs.
To be fair, donut crumbs are like crack for cops.
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No, it's quite common for US cops (generally hired from the dregs of society) to do things like that and worse. Start reading about civil forfeiture abuse, where travelers and business owners are relieved of valuables and cash under "suspicion" without trial. Obama and Holder tried to curtail this, Trump and Sessions fully support it...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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Sounds good -- the police do their jobs too "well" in the rest of the US. I can deal with homeless people, might even buy one a sandwich some day. Besides, it's not the police's place to arrest and abuse people who are already down and out. Drugs? I'm not a Puritan. As long as no one is forcing me to do the drugs, what business of mine is it? Offer treatment, don't jail people. Property crimes are what insurance is for.
I'm not a coward who needs a heavy-handed police department to protect me. Good o
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If somebody empties your bank accounts, empties your retirement accounts, and misappropriates all your title to real property, should they stay free simply because they didn't commit a violent crime (and are mentally unstable and have eczema)?
Stop being an apologist for a script kiddie. It's not a good look, and doing it effectively is apparently beyond your capability.
Such a nice strawman, and you kill it so well.
What this is about is US government officials' extreme embarrassment and outing of their egregious incompetence in totally failing due-diligence in fulfilling their obligations and duty by assuring the **the most simple and basic security practices* were employed on US military/defense and other government server systems.
This was a CYA move by US government officials who totally failed in their responsibilities & duties. They are scared shitless and looking
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One would think that if any of that was legally relevant, one of the courts involved might mention it. Did they?
And the obligatory xkcd addressing your conspiracy theory: https://xkcd.com/932/ [xkcd.com]
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One would think that if any of that was legally relevant, one of the courts involved might mention it. Did they?
Maybe they used the same Magic Get Out Of Jail Free Server Cloth that HRC used to escape Federal criminal charges. Just because a corrupt US "justice" system fails to hold it's own power-players to account does not make them innocent.
Strat
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Whatever you are smoking, you should stop. You are arguing that two crimes make a right: that because US officials allegedly violated some crime (that you cannot quite describe, but you're sure it is a crime), another criminal should not be extradited.
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Aaron Schwartz is haunting the U.S. extradition effort from the grave.
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Lauri Love is not accused of simply taking down a web site. He was facing that much prison time because of much more serious crimes against a lot of different victims. Your attempt at false equivalence fails.
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Oh, grow up. There are relevant differences between the two countries outside the criminal justice system.
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So if I go to someone's house and they didn't lock their door I should be allowed to wander around inside touching things? Right?
So, if I'm the CIO and responsible for data security at your bank and totally fail to prevent foreign hackers from taking all your money by failing to implement the most basic security practices, I should not face charges, and the blame should *only* be placed on those Evil(TM) Bad Guys?
Strat
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Good point Entrope. Except...During the most recent housing crisis people lost their property, lost their savings, emptied their retirement account in order to move and find an appropriate place to live.
How many of the bankers and 'financial consultants' went to prison let alone had charges placed against them?
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Apparently 324 bankers, investment consultants, and similar have been convicted of financial crimes as a result of the 2008-2009 crisis. I don't know how many went to prison.
Most of the people who lost lots of money did so because they thought multiple markets would keep going up -- and there is no real cure for that unless you prevent people from choosing where to put their own money. That is one "cure" that I think is worse than the disease.
I can't see any valid reason against extradition (Score:3)
"He can do the time in Britain where he lives and was located when he committed the crime. That sounds much more fair..."
No it doesn't. While what the person did was illegal in both countries the parties harmed were in America. This is literally why we have extradition treaties. Furthermore, the basis for the rationale for not sending him to the US seems to be that if he's convicted he'll find US prison unpleasant. Not that he will be turtured, not that he will be excecuted, not that he would even face an u
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"Antibiotic-resistant eczema" is called "a convenient excuse to not do the Americans' bidding."
The problem is that US sentencing is too harsh, and he might be looking at what's essentially a life sentence, without possibility of parole (US Federal system did away with that in the 80s). He didn't kill anyone, there's no evidence that he did any actual damage. Too harsh. As long as the US system allows for the possibility of excessive sentencing of that type, other countries will keep pushing back and tell
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On one hand that's bullshit. A court if law should not function in such a way.
On the other hand, that sounds terribly reasonable until you actually look into things
From: https://www.theguardian.com/ne... [theguardian.com]
A) After an initial arrest the UK chose to not prosecute him at all for his crimes. Perhaps if the UK had sought to send him through their own legal system initally things would have been different.
B) He was facing a possible 99 year sentence in the US. If his crimes were as harmless as you state then it cer
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"Unnamed co-conspirators?" Evidence seems strong in this case. Right. Maybe the US didn't actually present enough evidence that he should be prosecuted. It's not the first time that US prosecutors have gone on a witch-hunt based on flimsy evidence.
Babar Ahmed should have gotten zero time in the US and been tried in the UK. As heinous as supporting al-Qaeda is, his technical crime was hosting a website raising money for al-Qaeda on a web provider that had a presence in the US. Honestly, he owed the US
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""Unnamed co-conspirators?" Evidence seems strong in this case."
There are all sorts of legitimate reasons certain parties aren't named publicly in lawsuits. Your sarcastic cause for doubt is flimsy at best.
Also, I used Babar as an example of what might happen to Lauri Love if he were tried in the US. Whether Babar should have been extradited is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
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A) Whose to say what was sent over to British courts. We're just looking at the public stuff.
B) This is all stupid drivel. The court rulings do not make a single mention of the US not providing enough evidence. This tangent is irrelevant to the discussion.
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Wut.
Aaron Shwartz was threatened with 35 years for what was, at worst, trespassing. That's what the Feds do - threaten draconian prison terms that would make Saudi Arabia blush in order to get people to accept plea deals, saving the prosecutor the work of having an actual trial. That's why Chelsea Manning pled to a 35 year sentence despite it being a much longer sentence
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Well, you certainly have a lot of unsupported and irrelevant talking points. At least you have made it clear that your priority is propaganda rather than shedding light on the topic.
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Your country still hasn't prosecuted this tool, but a comedian who made a dog video faces prison time for it. Is it now three police systems that ignored decades of systematic violence against young women out of fear of appearing racist, or have more cases come out in the last few weeks? Fix your own dysfunctional "justice" system before you complain about the US one.
Re:We can't send him to trial... (Score:5, Interesting)
That sounds much more fair than sending him to a crazy country that locks up a startlingly large fraction of its own population.
As opposed to the crazy country that's about to imprison a man [newsweek.com] for making a joke on the internet?
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If the UK court wanted to really make a point about the UK's jurisdiction and sovereignty, it could do something about all the people being assassinated by Russia inside the UK, but I guess that is too hard. It's much easier to make a statement by letting a script kiddie go free; apparently current-day Brits can't be bothered to do anything too hard. They even need to pass a Snooper's Charter to make it easier to surveil their entire populace.
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The Brits are very aware of this, which is why many people (including his own defence team) are recommending he faces trial in the UK.
He will at least get a fair trial here.
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It's not that the UK is unwilling to send him to trial. It is just that the UK is unwilling to send him to trial in a system which our courts deem inadequate. (Both in terms of medical attention, and the excessive potential sentencing).
If somewhere 'more reasonable' like Holland were to make the same extradition request - it would be much more likely to go through.
In the same way you might feel squeamish about sending someone to rot in a [Insert some unpleasant jurisdiction] prison - we feel squeamish about
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Um, congratulations for finding propaganda? For example, the first three lists I found of the "most brutal" or "most violent" or "worst" prisons in the world all included Alcatraz, which has been closed for 55 years -- almost twice as long as it was open.
Non Serviam (Score:2)
... because he might be upset at the prospect of losing!
Someone needs to remind the Brits that if Love didn't want to do the time, he shouldn't have done the crime.
The exact same "reasoning" can be used on Americans and why they should be subject to other countries' laws.
So you're okay with free extradition to other countries, including extraditing Americans who write Nazi apologism or symbols, make drawings of Mohammed, flirt with a married person online, or create a web site allowing people to anonymously poke fun at royalty?
If you want US laws to reach the rest of the world, but Americans to be shielded from other countries' laws, you're either irrational or a bigot. Earlier, when USA was the only real superpower in the Western world, they could get away with that crap. But Rome is falling. The rest of the world don't kowtow to an empire that once was, led by someone who makes Caligula look sane.
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Someone needs to have a US justice system that (a) works and (b) doesn't inflict cruel and unusual punishment. If you want to try people, it always helps to have a working system.
And one that you bloody well obey. Starting with placing prisoners in Gitmo on trial in the US courts as per SCOTUS rulings, and handing back the Black Hills of Dakota (also as per SCOTUS rulings).
Sorry, British don't do naff.
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Strange, you appear to think we should be scared of him or something.
It's not too late to close a golf course in Aberdeen.
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The US gov is going to remember how their treaty work got talked about by the UK.
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