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Extradition of Warez Suspect Blocked
An anonymous reader writes "Following up on an earlier Slashdot story, the extradition of alleged DrinkorDie leader Hew Raymond Griffiths has been denied. The judge in the case ruled that Griffiths, an Australian who had never set foot in the United States, had committed the alleged actions in Australia and had never fled from an extradition country. Therefore, the US hadn't made its case. Griffiths' attorney points out that he should have faced trial in Australia if anywhere, but .au authorities never charged him, which upset the DOJ and led to the extradition attempt. More info can also be found. The US (represented by Australian prosecutors) have fifteen days to appeal. One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach."
Getting the criminals OUT of Aussie...
:)
Damn it we tried very hard to get them all in there
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach. Invade it? Ofcourse only if said country sits on shitloads of oil.
I'm not a fan of piracy, but if Australia felt like going easy on him, that's his concern. he never broke a law in the united states. is someone going to arrest me for a law I broke in Ukraine?
this could have set a dangerous precedent. considering how foreigners rights can be trampled due to the PATRIOT act, I'm glad we can't add unlawful and/or unwilling extradition to the list of powers we hold over non-citizens.
There was a story on /. just recently where the USA was attempting to add DMCA-like clauses in order for a trade agreement to go ahead... Don't get me wrong here - there's nothing wrong with a country trying to get as much as it can from any international deal, it's just that I loath the DMCA and its kin...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Or they'll give you the boot
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
the decision is a strong message to the United States Department of Justice that it will not be allowed to hijack the laws of a sovereign nation merely because it is dissatisfied with said country's laws
Here here! Even if our laws do need adjusting, I'd hate to think that American laws applied applied on my home turf - or any other countries for that matter.
Still, piracy is bad, and it hurts my pocket, so I hope that he can be prosecuted in Australia still.
... but finally my country shows some spine. He should be prosecuted in Australia, under Australian law. If the department of public prosecutions has seen fit not to charge him, then it either means that a) they don't think there's a case, or b) they're out chasing murderers like they should be.
No offence intended to my American colleagues, but please respect everyone else's borders!
-- Your mother uses Emacs.
I remember hearing that during the 1980's, Iran's government officially tried to extradite Madonna and Michael Jackson so that they could be put to death on obscenity charges.
Google is not proving helpful in finding any references to this at the moment...
-- My Weblog.
> One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
They will react by making an appeal by the means of court. What poster of this article is expecting them to do ? Cover-bomb Australia or what ?
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
The US wouldn't accept it.
The U.S. steadfastly refuses to play by its own rules, much less anyone else's.woof.
One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
Then "one" hasn't read enough on the subject.
When asked about possibly extraditing Neo Nazi webmasters to Germany where it's illegal to do things like...Deny the Holocaust or glorify Hitler; John Russell, a U.S. justice department spokesman said "In order to have extradition, you have to have dual criminality in both countries, and this doesn't meet that standard,"
Google for "Fred Leuchter german extradition" and you'll get a few links.
The US Government wouldn't do it, so how can they expect Australia to?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
News flash - Australia is NOT part of the US. It is a foreign nation!
Foreign to whom?
Sorry to pick nits here, but Australia is a sovereign nation, in that it has it's own laws and constitution and such. You know, things that frustrate the current US administration in thier attempts to bring "freedom" to the rest of the world.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Local authorities failed to deal with the problem, which is bad. But the extradition attempt are a perfect example of they way to go if America wants everyone to hate them. The big bully strikes again.
Personally if I lived there and he were shipped to the US, US would lose another star in my book as well as my local goverment for kissing their ass.
I don't hate America, but when they try to do the "hey look, we are the greatest country in the world, everybody follow us" stunt, I'd like to be able to shut them up.
Guess what, I think that MY country is the greatest in the world, but you can come in as number two.
As a joke, on Wikipedia, I made 51st state a redirect to Canada. Minutes later, I got some pretty angry messages - until the others realized I wasn't being serious. In the end, we turned '51st state' into a legitimate article (probably the only one on the subject).
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
``One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.''
I find it scary enough what the US has done in cases like this one:
If it's just one criminal, just anger. If it happens more often, economic sanctions or cutting of diplomatic ties. If the criminal has been labeled a terrorist (hmm, could this dude be a cyberterrorist?), war.
That's the reaction against the country itself. As to the alledged criminal, they could invite them to the US and arrest them there. Or they could send some intelligence agents to kidnap them.
I believe these things have happened in the past. Sklyarov was invited to the US and arrested. Afghanistan didn't (refused or couldn't) deliver Bin Laden and was conquered. As for kidnapping, I seem to recall some incident in Africa...was it Kenia? I don't know, but I think there have been cases.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
To answer your question: One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
In July 1998 in Rome, 120 Member States of the United Nations adopted a treaty to establish - for the first time in the history of the world - a permanent international criminal court. [source UN].
And this is what the US had to say about it: "This is to inform you, in connection with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted on July 17, 1998, that the United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, the United States has no legal obligations arising from its signature on December 31, 2000. The United States requests that its intention not to become a party, as expressed in this letter, be reflected in the depositary's status lists relating to this treaty."[source UN]
Thus the US has no intention of ever handing over any of its citizens to even an internationa court. However, the US department of justice (ha ha) has the audacity to try to extradite an Australian national under extra vires conditions.
The US thinks it is the world policeman. But it is not willing to police itself. I am glad Australia finally stood up to the global bully. I hope Australians vote Howard out at the next elections and follow the example set by the brave people of Spain.
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One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried to invade it because it
stockpiles weapons of mass destruction.
It's late... it's Friday... I'm still at work
My apologies for an such an awful abuse of the English language. Possibly the first for Slashdot I suspect.
Reminds me of the Helms-Burton Act where non-US citizens (like European or Canadian company CEO's) can be charged in the US for trading with Cuba.
This is clearly a plot by terrorists to undermine the western IT industry.
We, the USA, must vigorously defend ourselves against this outrageous act of terrorism by sending our troops over to liberate the good people of Australia currently being held hostage by these cyber terrorists who are allegedly tied to the radical Al Quesa Dia sect of Muslims known for promising 72 tacos in heaven to their starving martyrs.
What makes these terrorist particularly dangerous is that the good people of Australia don't yet realize they are being held hostage. But fear not, we will establish a truly fair and balanced news media led by Fox News to help educate their population.
And in the unlikely event that we damage critical infrastructure, our highly experienced nation-building corporations such as Halliburton will send the most expensive engineers over to help rebuild the country--the cost which our patriotic and God-fearing middle class is more than happy to bear for the sake of freedom.
The bloody Aussie government didn't immediately assume the position in negotiations with the US. Is Howard growing scrotum? Backing off from consistent kissing of Bush's posterior area? Enquiring minds want to know.
ehintz
Before he stomped off, he asked "Is it going to be like this everywhere I go around here?!?"
One can only hope he gave up vacationing anywhere more exotic than Niagara Falls.
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Net sa best, mar it koe minder
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How the fuck is John Howard (Australian Prime Minister) getting any credit for this? This was a court decision ... from a judge. Please don't give any credit to Mr Coward, we all know he would have bent over to the US in a hearbeat. Sheesh.
Yeah, that was relevant.
The first one is a agreement between US and Thailand on extraditions. It says noting about actual people being extradicted one way or the other. I'd assume that the US intend to get some people extradicted from Thailand while refusing all requests Thailand has (if they want to).
The second is stripping a former Nazi guard from Treblinka (a concentration camp) of his US citizenship since he wasn't truthful about his history on his application. The final case is about the US wanting to extradite people from France.
So, none has any relevance to the topic at hand. The australian is born in australia and has never been in the US. The most relevant case in your examples is a Nazi war criminal (and apparently an infamously brutal one).
It's very clear that in international conventions about extraditions, countries are allowed to deny any extradition request for its own nationals. Actually, I don't know any country who does !
...
eg:
European Convention on Extradition
Paris, 13.XII.1957
Article 6 - Extradition of nationals
A Contracting Party shall have the right to refuse extradition of its nationals.
Each Contracting Party may, by a declaration made at the time of signature or of deposit of its instrument of ratification or accession, define as far as it is concerned the term "nationals" within the meaning of this Convention.
Nationality shall be determined as at the time of the decision concerning extradition. If, however, the person claimed is first recognised as a national of the requested Party during the period between the time of the decision and the time contemplated for the surrender, the requested Party may avail itself of the provision contained in sub-paragraph a of this article.
If the requested Party does not extradite its national, it shall at the request of the requesting Party submit the case to its competent authorities in order that proceedings may be taken if they are considered appropriate. For this purpose, the files, information and exhibits relating to the offence shall be transmitted without charge by the means provided for in Article 12, paragraph 1. The requesting Party shall be informed of the result of its request.
Many of the american pilots are on amphetamines. Most pilots on really long or late night missions use amphetamines. They use dexadrine (time released Dextro-Amphetamine) to keep them awake and alert. Dexadrine is prescribed for a lot of diagnosed ADD/ADHD people in the US. Dexadrine causes some pilots to make decisions too quickly. When a pilot has to make life and death decisions on a regular basis such as they do on some missions the Dexadrine may make them be wrong. The pilots are often worried about ground targets being a threat to the and often choose to eliminate the target instead of risking that its really an enemy SAM site.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
You will be branded a Rogue State(tm), part of The Axis Of Evil(tm), Your President/Prime Minister/Supreme Commander/Russian Overlord will be declared an Evildoer(tm), all your money will be taken, you will be held responsible for a terrorist attack in the form of an executive pretzel swallowing incident, and thus, after your nation has been drained from all resources, brainpower and any other useful assets, it will get the shit bombed out of it. When that is done your country will be placed on the WTO/WIPO shitlist, so your country won't have enough money to recover. Haliburton (owned by the vice prez of the country that wanted you extradited in the first place) will offer to rebuild your infrastructure he so thoughtfully bombed a month before, at outrageous cost, and then Monsalto will come and force GM crops down your populations throats at a high price (subscriptions available, terms and conditions apply), to be paid yearly.
Of course, being a good citizen of the Western World(tm) I merely jest, and at no time have thought any Really Unpatriotic Thoughts.... hang on, what are those black heli [no carrier]
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Fucking asswipes made a deal with UK to allow them to extradite pretty much anyone they want without even going through a judge here! I don't know which government i hate more, the US for being such assholes, or my own government following them like a little puppy. Im not even going to start about camp X-ray.
extract from statewatch
On 31 March, David Blunkett, UK Home Secretary, signed an Extradition Treaty on behalf of the UK with his United States counterpart, Attorney General Tom Ashcroft, ostensibly bringing the US into line with procedures between European countries. The UK parliament was not consulted at all and the text was not public available until the end of May. The only justification given for the delay was "administrative reasons", though these did not hold-up scrutiny by the US senate, which began almost immediately.
The UK-US Treaty has three main effects:
- (1) it removes the requirement on the US to provide prima facie evidence when requesting the extradition of people from the UK but maintains the requirement on the UK to satisfy the "probable cause" requirement in the US when seeking the extradition of US nationals;
- (2) it removes or restricts key protections currently open to suspects and defendants;
- (3) it implements the EU-US Treaty on extradition, signed in Washington on 25 June 2003, but far exceeds the provisions in this agreement.
Ofcourse it works the otherway around but i dont think we would have a chance in hell of extraditing an American - the treaty is very unfairly balanced.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
Not in the least. The US vehemently opposed the International Crime Court, and when it became clear that the court was becoming reality, the US fought to have citizens of the United States immune to prosecution there.
So one need not wonder at all, a quick peek behind the shoulder reveals how the US government reacts to matters such as these when applied to them.
apparently no-one can read.
this is about the third time someone's mistaken the order of this sentence.
read it as "One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried [to extradite a US citizen from USA using ]a similar approach."
ashridah
2) The US DOJ decided that he must therefore be extradited for prosecution in the US.
This does not exclude that if a US citizen/company feels they have been nobbled by an australian they can none the less pursue thier case in the Australian courts and seek damages. Obviously they canot seek criminal charges on the basis of US laws.
Do US citizens understand what Democracy actually means? As far as I can see many US citizens seem to think that Democracy means you agree with them.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Isn't Disneyland US territory, in the same way embassy grounds are?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
Probably in exactly the same way, extradition agreeements are a two way thing. Recently the French successfully extradited a child rapist and murderer from the US. Of course he had committed his crime in France.
I'm amazed that the US tried this (I find it hard to imagine any court US or otherwise agreeing to such an extradition), but that doesn't make them bad guys for trying - just stupid.
This is awesome... It's about time someone gets a head on their shoulders. When the US can prosecute foreign nationals for doing something in a foreign country, that's the end of it... Say someone spits on the sidewalk in New Delhi? Well, it seems the US should have that person extradited to the US because it's against the law to spit on the sidewalk in the US.
It is ridiculous for the US to think that it can extend its laws beyond its sovreign boundaries and apply them in OTHER sovreign states, to people who are neither IN the US or citizens thereof. It is clearly against just about every international law and treaty on the books (with a few notable exceptions, *cough* UK *cough*).
When in Rome... right? I give the US about 10 years before the rest of the world gets sick of our shit and blows us off the face of the Earth with a massive trade war.. our economy is our most vulnerable weakness...
Attorney Humlen, lecturer in international law at the university of Oslo, has a lot of strange, sometimes funny anecdotes about international events. As I recall, he recounted the nicaragua harbor-mining incident more or less like this:
Nicaragua's head of state said something unflattering about Reagan in a public speech. Reagan, perhaps as a result of the onset of senile dementia, thought that mining the harbors of Nicaragua was a reasonable response.
This of course provoked incredulous responses from the rest of the world, and the court in question did rule the action illegal. However, since US support for the court was essential to its success, they made the penalty as light as they possibly could: just pay for the cleanup, please.
Unfortunately, that wasn't light enough for the US government, and they have since boycotted the international court in question.
(errors in this anecdote are probably due to me, not attorney Humlen)
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
That reminds me of that American family I noticed in some European capital: Small girl knocks over thrash can by accident. Makes a lot of noise. No big deal, no harm done. She looks up at her Dad expecting some kind of reprimande, but the guy says "Don't worry Honey, you're an American citizen, they can't hurt you."
That incident really illustrates how Americans regard foreigners and maybe this also explains the latest 3-4 years of American foreign policy.
Sigh. Here goes my karma --wheeeee
I know of a hotel owner (owner, resort and country shall remain unnamed) with a reputation of being a prankster, that used to ask his American guests when leaving whether they had a stamp of the resort in their passports. Most of his guests answered with the innocent/naive "No, we didn't get one when we passed customs." Whereupon he kindly offered and actually succeeded in providing one. After a couple of months he received an official letter from the US embassy where he was asked to stop his actions otherwise they'd send in the US navy. What better statement of your whit would you like?
Please I'd like to be modded down as insulting to the US of A.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
Really? Isn't it trivially predictable how the US would have reacted?
For all intents and purposes, the US behaves like the alpha male in a pack - namely as if the rules would not apply to them, only to others.
Incidently, that is exactly what is usually meant when we say someone is arrogant.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
IIRC there's a law in the United States which they used to capture drug kings in the South America (late 90's?). The law says that US authorities have a right to arrest persons of other nationalities outside US. I wonder if they'll try that out now.
It was widely discussed in Finland if US authorites could arrest Finnish person in Finland. Officials considered that it would count as a military action.
And I wonder what people in US would think if Germany would start arresting people in US for selling swastika flags to Germany...
?SYNTAX ERROR
Just remember that the first immigration wave in America were persecuted in their own Old Europe => Non-papists in France, papists in the UK, people with a "knack" considered as withcraft everywhere, people that lost everything due to war, Dutch that tried to escape their crowded and quite intolerant society, and then of courses, slaves brought out from Africa, and so on...
...etc, ad nauseatum.
So from my point of view, Americans and Aussies are quite equal at their beginning : derelicts, outcasts and unwanted.
The only difference is that on the whole, at least until recently, the Aussies were considered as less bastards and less imperialists than the US.
Also, the American problem is that the very good ideas in the constitution have been perverted by corporations and protestant integrists...They made the money from the slave triangle (Silk, ores, ware, exchanged for slaves, exchanged for money, that bought local wares, that got transformed into
At lease the Aussies had the "excuse" of being considered as BAD ppl (extraded UK Criminals, and anybody that was making a fuss against the local gov) so anything they did was an improvement.
Americans should have done better, seeing their "nobler origins" of persecuted.
On the whole, I still would prefer Canada to the US, and Australia to the US.
Alas, the richest is also the meanest...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
What is the point of this story and 90% of the comments in it? As far as I can ascertain, lazy as I am, the story is something like this:
- Australian guy breaks US law.
- US asks Australia for extradition.
- Australia tries the case in a court like any normal country would do.
- Court says no.
The whole point of the court system is to decide these things. So what if the US made a somewhat unreasonable request? They said no! It's not like they said, "Give him to us or we'll bomb your country."
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
There's no other country that comes close to our Air, land, and sea superiority.
And then we'd just bomb the shit out of their land. Simple as that.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Nicaragua was a communist puppet state. Nicaragua's "head of state" was a brutal communist dictator. And contrary to little slashdot kiddie beliefs, communism is not just an epithet.
No, communism is an economic system, quite distinct from those who have misused the term since its definition.
I don't understand how your name-calling was meant to invalidate the post you were replying to? I thought funding and supporting revolutionary soldiers in other countries would be considered supporting terrorism, but apparently it was alright for Reagan and his buddies, even though they had to break international and American law to be able to do it, and then perjure themselves afterwards to cover it up.
deus does not exist but if he does
Anyone want to start a pool for how long before Hew ends up in U.S. custody?
/.) how stupid he really is and gets arrested at LAX within a year.
:-)
This guy is stupid enough to blatantly offer warez for years, so he will probably be stupid enough to accept a "free" offer to speak at a DefCon convention next year, or be interviewed for a perfect job. I'm betting he shows the world (or just
It goes further than this, though. He'll have to stay out of any country where he might be extradited without a hearing, such as the UK, the Philippines, Japan, Canada or Mexico. He'll have to avoid all long distance air travel where his plane might have to divert to a country with a looser extradition agreement with the U.S., avoid flights with stopovers or even refeuling stops in U.S. friendly countries.
Then again, with the Aussie PM currently doing a goatse and bending over for a right reaming of Australian sovreignity with U.S. trade and military control, it could just be a matter of time before Hew can be extradited without another hearing.
Given that he is only free for as long as he never sets foot outside of NSW, its kind of a prison sentence right there
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
You're new here, aren't you?
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
One wonders how the US government would react if a foreign nation tried a similar approach.
France
Just ask Roman Polanski, who fled there to avoid statutory rape charges.
I am an American citizen. I am appalled that "my government" feels that they can do whatever they want to whomever, and whenever.
"He never set foot on US soil.... He never attempted to flee an extradition country."
Leave this guy alone, I mean come on. If his country is not after him, then what makes you guys in Washington feel that it's your responsability to go after him?
It's time for this country to stop policing the world.
Obviously the world doesn't want the US medelling in their affairs, so WASHINGTON BUTT THE HELL OUT.
If you guys think he did something, and needs to be prosecuted then wait till it's on US soil when you have jurisdiction.
As for him pirating warez, well if i wrote software I wouldn't want anyone taking my hard earned money.
I can't help but feel this has something to do with Micro$oft, and some politician getting his campaign pockets lined by them.
I can see the headlines, "Big brother crushes the little guy".
Not to mention that this country broke away from England to get away from tyrrany.
It seems ironic that we are now the tyrant!
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
that the unnamed country was in fact Switzerland.
New?! :)
heh, I must be ancient.
All that has to be done is make a phone call to the WTO and complain.
Remember all members must submit to a 'lowest common denominator', and give up their own independent sovereignty.
Since this technically effects 'international commercial trade' it would fall under their jurisdiction.
Though personally, I say Go Australia for standing up for what is right. Laws are different in different countries, that's just the way it goes.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A few years ago I bought a game. I went to install it and it asked me for the CD key. I looked on the jewel case and in the little box where the CD key was supposed to be printed there was nothing. I'm 99% sure this was a fully legal game. The manuals, discs, and box all looked fully authentic. I think they just had a printing error.
So I called up the game company's support line, and after an hour on hold, someone came online and I explained my problem. I asked if I could be sent a working CD key. Not quite. The only solution they were willing to accept was that I mail them my box, CD and jewel case. They would verify that the copy was legal and that it didn't include the CD key, and then they'd send it back. The estimated time for this process? 6 to 8 weeks. The one paying for the shipping? Me.
Returning the game wasn't an option, since I had already opened the shrinkwrap, so I was stuck.
Luckily, I was able to look online, find a crack, and play the game that night.
Lots of people have argued that publishers benefit from the 'warez' scene. It gets the game known, and if it's good enough, a lot of people will go out and buy it for the missing things -- online play, full movies, etc. I'd also argue that it lets them get away with otherwise fatal mistakes. When they use a copy protection scheme that's broken, people just turn to the online cracks.
It's the same kind of feeling a mother gets when her childern are attacked or threatened. Most of us took it personally that we had failed to stop the attacks. When the Bush administration made the conscious choice not to back down and to face the terrorists we were given an outlet for our anger and a chance to redeem ourselves. When the first group of Rangers went into Afghanistan on a night mission they left behind nothing but bodies and a photo of the wreckage of the twin towers. The message? We will not be intimidated and if they thought they could crush this nation through one cowardly act they were very mistaken.
War is an evil thing but unfortunately it is a necessity in our world. Of course in the perfect world there would be no need for a military or warfare or any of this but that only exists in academia or in some people's minds. Whatever hatred or anger you may have for the Bush administration please remember that we the professional soldiers of this nation would be doing the same thing for ANY President that asked it of us, no matter what we think of his politics or morals. Civilians have that choice - we do not.
"Trying is only the first step towards failure." - Homer
I know it isn't a popular opinion to have because these actions are illegal but I can only hope that he is able to get off with no penalty. I look at the way we are going with our current fight for digital rights like a war, and our commitment to blatantly steal what we should be charged for is our greatest ally in showing major corporations that we will not only not aid them in their quest to control everything but also take the goods they are trying to sell and enjoy ourselves as well.
./revolution