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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."
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. . . for copyright "crimes," surely we can force China and Korea to turn over their spam-supporting admins, right? I'd even settle for them being tried at the Hague, so long as the death penalty were on the table.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Well said... I agree completely with your statements, but add this into the pot. Why should someone who commits crimes against someone in another country not be held liable for those crimes simply because of geographic boundaires? Now you can argue about the defenition of crime in relation to warez until you're blue in the face, but I'm not going to tread there...
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
One wonders wheather this has anything to do with David Hicks, a australian citizen who is being tried in the us (in guntanimo bay) for receving terrorist training, our government, until a couble of days ago (like sunday or monday) refused to lift a finger, but now they are making a effort to get him back, to be tried in australia in a propper courtroom not an ammerican miltarty tribunal (it only started on the weekend IIRC. Maybe our governments acction is because we have a election comming up in october. but anyway maybe the australian government it trying to "Bribe" the US gov to get him back.
Some time ago in Australia there was a spectacular fraudster that went to Spain to escape justice - a decade of extradition attempts got nowhere.
In my opinion, the members of the MPAA and other copyright lobbyists in the USA should have the decency to pay tax since they are consuming so much of the governments resources on this. All those big movies barely break even on paper - the IRS is expected to beleive that all of Hollywood is run as some sort of charity to the moviegoing public.
I would have thought that these pirates encrypt their fileservers, so that even if their hardware gets confiscated.... the hard disks all appear to be blank.
I mean, they're so busy breaking other people's protections..... sheesh, you would have thought that they'd employ some themselves.
I guess criminals really are stupid.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Search Google for " wares". It comes up saying "Did you mean: warez".
Hehe, my brother pointed that one out to me.
Why should someone who commits crimes against someone in another country not be held liable for those crimes simply because of geographic boundaires?
Probably the most-quoted phrase in this thread... a true troll if ever I saw one. That said, I'm biting...
Let's say you have a nice, WWII bomb shell. It might still be active, it might not. But, it's decorated your grand-uncle's porch for 30-some-odd years. Grand uncle dies, and you get it.
You sell it on EBay. Now, it's not illegal to own this shell in the US.
Suddenly, somebody from France extradites you for attempting to sell "military munitions to civil personnel". But wait a minute... it's not illegal to own that in the US! But, it is/was being sold to people IN FRANCE!
The "Intarweb thingar" had made a mess of the legal system in many respects - with courts and jurisdictions the world over scrambling to remain relevant.
In the above cases, many courts have chosen to construe the act of selling happening whereever the sale "took place" - in other words, where the customer is.
So, are you ready to defend yourself in a French court?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Australia is giving up its own citizen for extradition by the US for an act committed on Australian soil? That's outright astonishing! And rather frightening. (Of course, we've got nothing to fear. The US would never remand over anybody for some hard questioning in a rogue state like Syria or anything like that!)
Because he's not an american, and didn't commit any crimes in america, perhaps? If he pirates software in australia, give me one good reason why on earth he should go to america for trial / sentence??? I can legally shout the word "fuck" as loud as I please on the street here, but in the US (last time I checked) it's a misdimeanor crime. If there's an american around, or on the phone to somebody standing next to me, should I therefore be extradited to the US for an appearance before judge judy?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
By this logic, arguably the US wouldn't be able to try Osama Bin Laden if he was captured, despite the fact that he allegedly facilitated and conspired in the murder of 3000 people in the US. And the country whose laws he was under at the time wasn't particularly interested in trying him either.
Don't you think, in the interest of fairness and justice, that Osama should be tried by an international court instead? Trying him in the US would be like letting the victim of an alleged crime be the judge of the accused.
Likewise, if someone committed bank fraud from Australia against the US, it would hardly be the Australian authorities investigating it, nor would anyone in Australia be damaged-- so it wouldn't exactly be very interesting to Australian prosecutors. Hence we have extradition treaties for this type of thing.
That's a good point. Except I find it hard to believe that Australia's legal system allows for its citizens to commit bank fraud on foreigners. I would think, in the interest of international good will, that they would prosecute people commiting such crimes. It makes more sense, in my opinion, than extradition treaties which ship people to other countries to be tried for crimes not comitted there. Extradition treaties, *IMO*, should be limited towards handing over people wanted for crimes comitted in foreign countries.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
Poor bastard.
I mean, he was a pathetic warez hacker, but I wouldn't want anyone to have to face the US 'justice' system.
I've had several friends who had utterly insane things happen to them in America, it's made me paranoid enough that I wouldn't even want to stop over there. I know there's plenty of places, people, and festivals I'd like to visit in America, so it can't be that bad - but it seems like foreigners, even english speaking, western world, acceptably 'caucasian' foreigners, often get treated like shit, especially by the authorities. Or maybe that's normal. I don't know.
I don't want to find out.
---- I've fallen, and I can't get up.
That's even worse. If it's left to the Attourney-General, it is guaranteed that Griffiths will be extradited. The current Australian government has a nasty track record of doing everything Washington tells them to do.
OLPC Australia
The relationship between the United States and Australia is a simple pimp/bitch relationship and one doesn't have to hold an advanced degree to know who's the bitch in the relationship. With the British, you at least know they have some financial influence her in the states but what arsenals do the Aussies posses besides the Rupert Murdoch empire? Australia is quite pathetic in terms of world standing. Curiously, I'd love to know what percentage of the GDP is generated by Rupert Murdoch companies. Is he the Rockefeller of Australia? Does everyone and their mother try to keep the fat fuck happy?
From observation I have noticed that Australians like to think highly of themselves but the truth is they are nothing more than lap dogs of the US of A. I wonder if they know this and a bit curious as to how they feel about it.
It's very disturbing that a computer connection is now legally equivalent to being physically present in order to commit a crime.
If I'm logged into my banks computer to review my account while it's being robbed, am I an accessory to the crime?
If I discuss through e-mail religion, politics, etc... with a citizen of another country which is deemed critical or violates some law in China for example, could the fact that my mail server connects to a mail server located in China become equivalent to me actually going to China to speak against the government?
This new precedent combined with the musings of Orrin Hatch make for a pretty scary future.
Combine this with IP spoofing and a whole new dimension to identity theft and it's consequences is born.
On the upside, I know a couple of politicians who could be extradited somewhere, I'm sure they've done something that's illegal in another country.
Let's all hope that Australian Labor Party wins the coming election and kicks out this lap-dog Howard government.
AFAIK he haven't ever been in US. How could he commit crimes there?
Why?... lets try a scenario and see how you feel about it.
Your 18 year old daughter (or sister) has been priating software amongst his friends in college to make spare cash.
Some of the software he's pirating it produced in the UK, and the UK want to extradite him to stand trial there.
How do you feel about it now?
Stop equating the law with ethics. He may or may not have broken law. I don't know the particulars of this case but while I respect copyright law in general the automatic assumption that the the copyright of mass market members of the RIAA should be acknowledged is bogus. See my signature for the reason why.
And before the the RIAA parasites on this forum start targetting me please note that, no, I am not mass copier or distributer but neither I am particularly anti such people either.
IP law is an ass. Until law that represents the interests of all citizens, not just parasite corporations, is enacted, civil disobedience may be entirely appropriate. As the documentary says corporations are sociopaths, making money above all else, and need good law to keep them in check.
The fact that the GPL uses copyright law to implement its goals is irrelevant. Democracies use guns to kill people. In both cases the tools being used are appropriate to the context they are in.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
I find these remarks of American patriotism to be very ironic. In your eyes they are undoubtedly true, but to 99% of the world living outside of the US, we do not care much for the way of life and "freedom" the U.S. is trying to force upon us while disobeying just about every international treaty they ever commited to. Your "illness-fighting" drugs are mostly consumed by yourselves, most people here don't feel the need to take an average of 10 different medicine when they have nothing seriously wrong with them because they haven't been brainwashed by the pharmaceutical industry to feel inherently unhealthy (yet). The military inventions that you feel save thousand of lives take thousands of lives in places that never did you any harm and never threatened to do so, and they didn't ask for your help either but they did happen to have the second largest oil reserve in the world. And hundreds of countries were not much worse of then they have been since the U.S. economy started dominating the world, consuming 5 times as much per person as the rest of the developed world and producing 4 times as much polution. But thanks anyway, at least you mean it the right way and it's the thought that counts I guess... P.S. Why don't you try watching Fahrenheit 911, then watch it again. If your eyes haven't been opened then they never will.
which these days would almost necessarily be comprised primarily of countries not friendly to us and in many cases openly sympathetic to bin Laden's cause.
This is unfortunatly the reality the US faces today, and whilst I disagee that the French would go soft on OBL if we managed to get our hands on him (It's just Iraq we object to, which is another war entirly) we have to admit that a lot of countries don't hold the US in their hearts atm.
Now, back to the question, in a court of law, everyone (prosecution and defense asside) have to be independant for the accused to have a fair trile. This counts just as much for an international court of law, as for a US one.
The problem is this: For OBL's crimes, a jury trial would be de riggeur (unless you have military tribunerals for everything by then). How do you expect to find 12 Americans who would be able to cast an unbiasd opinion on 9/11
It would be much easier to find neutral countries
Ask 8 slackers a question, get 10 awnsers (a citation, but I can't remember from who)
" The US is the major innovator and inventor in the world."
You're American, aren't you?
"Hundreds of countries livelihood is entirely dependent on the ongoing success of our economy."
Mainly Columbia and some sections of Mexico, but mostly where the world has resisted the economic bullying of the US they're getting along fine. Go check out your balance of trade and let us know if it's an import or export deficit.
"Our illness-fighting drugs are the lifeblood of many developing nations."
But a lot more expensive than the unlicensed copies you'll find _actually_ being used in the developing nations.
"Our military inventions save the lives of thousands of lives everytime our soldiers go into the field."
As long as you're American and on that battlefield, then you might be okay, but don't assume that a dearth of statistics on friendly fire and civilian casualties means that there weren't any. You should check out the International Red Cross for some pertinent statistics that suggest that the US has actually caused more collateral damage than is entirely acceptable under the Geneva Convention.
"The list is too long"
List? I thought this was a vague cheerlead.
"Our economic base is slowly deteriorating from the "producer" of worldwide products"
Do give over. You economic base is crippling itself through the balkanisation of intellectual property, the pending threat of doing *something* about the global warming problem now that the administration has come clean, the constant clamouring for cheap goods for a decadent society and the rapidly aging society that will probably kill the US through demands for cheap, available medicare and a consistent quality of life. Democracy has both upsides and downsides; one of the downsides is the people are soft, fat and lazy. After a while a five metre killzone is going to do you no good if you can't afford to buy them.
Now generally you might consider this 'anti-american'. It's actually 'anti-jingoist' because the one thing I cannot stand is someone that tries to promote a view of something that is so far from the truth as to require a backing soundtrack and some inspirational graphics. There's a planet out there that is hungry and starving, and to be frank we don't want America to come in and save us. We want America to sort out your own mess and leave us all alone.
The trouble is that would mean the US couldn't manipulate markets, and that's fundamentally the reason for invading developing countries.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
You are underestimating the role of the US in the world. Currently many Eastern European countries are being coerced into signing a non-extradition treaty with the US. The treaty goes like this:
You sign that you will never hand over an American citizen for whatever reason, or whatever crime to anyone other than the US. You, on the other hand, get to extradite your own citizens whenever anyone asks. Bosnia and Romania have already signed. Do you know why?
If Americans leave Bosnia, there will likely be another genocide just like during the 92-95 war.
Oh, don't get me wrong, this intervention was a good thing, and it should have happened much much earlier.. The difference is that it happened at the plea of the Bosnian government, and was not an invasion based on some fishy 'evidence' of weapons of mass destruction.
Extradition should only be used for really serious offenses -- like software piracy.
Of course, the U.S. refused extradition of Kissinger for war crimes.
Looks like France may request extradition of Cheney for screwing not just the U.S. taxpayer but the rest of the world as well with the Halliburten money funnel. Of course, that will be denied as well.
Maybe software pirates need lobbyists?
It's sad to see everyone jump on the bandwagon and dunp on the French
Deriding the French is an old American pastime that we inherited from the English. From Shakespeare to Al Bundy the figure of the effete Frenchman is as engrained in our culture as "the moronity of the typical ugly American" appears to be in yours. Are such stereotypes unfair? Sure, but they also summarize conflicting cultural values that DO exist - notice how nicely the two stereotypes dovetail.