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Russian Snared By The FBI Sentenced To 3 Years
Mark Cantrell writes "Vasiliy Gorshkov, one of two Russian crackers who were arrested in November 2000 after the FBI broke into their computer systems were sentenced Friday. Taking pity on Gorshkov's family, they sentenced Gorshkov to 3 years in prison and a fine of nearly $700,000 USD. They also mention how a U.S. judge found that the FBI wasn't breaking any laws in breaking into a Russian computer system, despite the fact that they were breaking a Russian law doing so. So apparently, it's ok for Americans to break Russian law if they're in the U.S., but not ok for Russians to break U.S. law, even while in Russia."
It seems like these kind of things happen all the time and all we ever do is talk about how bad it is. We talk about abstract concepts like freedom and liberty, but what do we do to put those things into action? This is it, folks. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Stand up and say something. I'll see you later, I have a letter to write.
Advice: Pick your battles.
Gorshkov was convicted a year ago on 20 counts of computer crimes, fraud and conspiracy after being accused of helping Alexey Ivanov steal credit card numbers from U.S. online banks, e-commerce companies and Internet service providers, the U.S. Attorney's office in Seattle said.
Let the Russian government and foreign policy pundits work this one out. This is nothing like the Skylarov case. These were real criminals committing real crimes.
I hate the government as much as the next guy, but give me a break!
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do as we say, not as we do
Judges aren't stupid. If you're going to say something as bold as that, please provide a link to a court ruling where the reasons for the decision are made. With such a wording, and no support, the statement comes off as "Yankee judges think we have the right to hack into any computer system in the world 'cause we own the Internet," which is no doubt the intention.
Such a statement may very well be true, but please provide a link to where the Judge explains himself. He's probably a lot smarter than most of us. Even without beeing tech-saavy any judge would quickly pick up on the implications behind being able to break in to foreign systems without impunity.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Can't compare these jokers to Dmitri Skylarov. Skylarov was doing something that's allowed by Russian law, and frankly shouldn't be illegal in America. These jokers were running credit card scams which aren't allowed at all, no matter where you go.
The Russians objected to the FBI's means of gathering the evidence, not to the prosecution for the crimes themselves. The FBI "hacked" the computers by luring the Russians to the USA under the guise of a job interview, and installing keylogging software on their PC's as they were invited to hack a virtual network that the FBI set up. Using the keylogging software, the FBI was able to get their passwords, and use it to remotely access their computers in Russia. Using this evidence, they were extradited to the USA for prosecution.
What they did could be called Entrapment, and it could be called Espionage. But I still have to laugh that the l337 h4xx0rz from Russia were dumb enough to allow it to happen. They were running unsecured boxes at home, and for some unearthly reason decided to remotely access those boxes while partaking in an experiment to hack a virtual network in Seattle. Idiots. They get no sympathy at all from me.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I think the article doesn't tell the whole story:
the judge agreed that Russian law does not apply to the agents' actions.
I suspect that the judge's opinion was more like this:
"It is not my duty as a federal judge in the U.S. to enforce Russian law."
So it's not an issue for the courts, but for diplomacy. "I'll respect your laws if you respect mine."
Quite frankly, I have zero sympathy for this guy. He assists in stealing millions of dollars, credit-card fraud, etc. He's just as bad as the executives of Enron and Global Crossings (i.e., Gary Wennig). His actions cost people their life savings.
So, quite frankly, I feel little pity for him.
But there are important issues of Sovereignty that arise here, as well as other human rights issues.
The person of one nation should be subject ONLY to that nations laws. If he does nothing illegal by that nation's laws, he should not be arrested in another nation he visited simply because he did something in his homeland which violated that nations laws. However, when a law violated was one which was common between the two nations, then it does make slightly more sense (to be explained and extrapolated on earlier).
Consider if China can arrest a US visitor who visits China because that visitor violated Chinese law while in the US. Lets say that the visitor had more than one child, or criticized the Chinese government online, while in the US. Its would be outrageous for the Chinese government to arrest that person; and, if they did, the US government would undoubtedly protest adamently. We wouldn't tolerate that crap. Firstly, this constitutes what is effectively analagous to RETROACTIVE application of the law; it is unconsciable to punish someone for violating a law which they knew not existed and had no obligation to obey in another country.
There are certain *narrow* cases where international law should allow one nation to arrest the citizens of another while visiting: only in cases where the law that foreigner broke were common to both nations. If a person in Russia arranges for a murder to be committed in the US and travels to the US, we should have the right to arrest him, because what he did is illegal both in the US and in Russia. However, in such cases where nation A arrests a citizen of nation B, that citizen must be trialed by the laws of nation B.
Thus, Gorshkov very well can be arrested in the US. However, he should be trialed in accord with Russian law, not US law, for good or bad. This means that he gets the same rights (or lack thereeof) that he would get in Russia if he were accused of the same crime, and shall face the same punishment as he'd face in Russia.
But if a Russian citizen like Skylarov breaks US law while in Russia, and its an activity that the laws of both nations to not ban, then the US shouldn't have authority to trial that person in the US. We should, however, have the right to hold him a reasonable period of time to interrogate him and learn anything we can to prevent such activities in the future (i.e., if he's a member of a mafia ring), and we should have the right to exile him from coming or returning to the US. If he returns, the punishment should be whatever it is we do to those exiled who return.
This is all very simple and obviously common sense. Apparently, the US government doesn't get it. A government only has sovereignty over its own nation. The US has no sovereignty over what goes on in Russia or anyplace else in the world. We certainly wouldn't want our citizens travelling to China to be arrested and trialed by Chinese law. There's also very simple human rights issues at stake. It is unreasonable (and in some cases impossible) to ask any one person to obey the laws of several different nations at once, while only residing in one. It is a human rights violation to trial someone under a law which he had no obligation to find out existed (i.e., Russians have no obligation to know US law).
On a similar vein, a person (while in a nation) should obey the laws of that nation, and the laws of his homeland shall not follow him to other nations. That would be asking someone to obey the laws of two nations at once, something which is unreasonable and in some cases impossible. However, if someone violates a law in one nation and there's no corresponding law in his homeland, he should be deported (exiled) and sent back to his homeland. We wouldn't want a US citizen being put in jail for life in China because while in China he said something critical of the Chinese government.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
This isn't really accurate. They were busted when on US soil after coming here after falling for an FBI ruse. If they'd remained on Russian soil, they would've never been arrested by us. If asked politely, I suppose there's some chance the Russians would've detained and later extradited them, but once in our hands there was no reason to test that theory.
Likewise, if the FBI agents who broke the Russian law visit Russia, they may be busted for having broken Russian law. In theory Russia could ask the US to arrest and later extradite the FBI agents so they can be tried. In practice it doesn't appear as though the Russians care enough to raise a big stink about it. The Russians who were busted were, after all, common criminals.
There seems to be a certain symmetry to the picture, no?
Have you read it? Please post a link if you have, I can't find it. What I can find are several articles with statements like these:
The men claim the FBI acted improperly by covertly stealing their passwords and using that information to gather evidence against them.
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From http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_312763.html
Their lawyers contend that all material obtained from the computers should be suppressed ahead of any trial.
Seattle District Judge John Coughenour rejected the motion on the grounds that "the (FBI) agents had good reason to fear that if they did not copy the data, (the) defendant's co-conspirators would destroy the evidence".
He also added privacy rights contained within the Fourth Amendment do not extend to individuals or property located outside the US.
From http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=
Russian's state security service, the FSB, lodged a complaint against the FBI earlier this year, alleging that the FBI didn't have authorization to break into a computer system in Russia and download files.
The FBI countered, and the judge agreed, that Russian law does not apply to the agents' actions.
Seems pretty clear the judge is saying that the FBI doesn't need to follow the laws of either our own country or those of any other nation in an international pursuit of 'justice'.
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