Slashdot Mirror
Sklyarov Discusses the ElcomSoft Trial
DaytonCIM writes "Dmitry Sklyarov talks openly about the ElcomSoft trial to CNET News. The 'Russian programmer thinks it was unfair of prosecutors to play his videotaped deposition at the ElcomSoft trial rather than calling him to the stand.'"
...how did they settle the jurisdictional questions? I mean, last I heard, Skylarov was working in Russia. One assumes the US government just did it by fiat, or was there more diplomacy involved than what I'm led to believe?
If the US just went ahead and did it anyway, that's kind of a scary precedent, meaning that now, no matter where you are in the world, the long arm of US law enforcement can come after you for doing something it doesn't happen to like? If that's the case, as sort of a quid pro quo, I would like some of the priveleges of US citizenship to go along with the burdens.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Part of Dmitry's "plea" agreement was a provision that required him to testify for the government. As he said on several ocassions he was perfectly willing to do that since he had nothing to hide. Dmitry was not the defendant in the case that finally went to trial - his company was. Dmitry did eventually testify for the defense, but it still was pretty sketchy for the government to use his taped deposition instead of calling him to the stand.
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
Where's the justice here?
The justice here was almost the same justice the DoJ dealt Kevin Mitnick; but ElcomSoft was found not-guilty and Sklyarov only spent a short time in custody.
What we need to do as a community is fight the DMCA and DRM Technology, in hopes that this doesn't happen again.
Well, if this case has anything to say for precedence, it wouldn't surprise me if China gained that right.
Scary, eh?