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."

Comments

Re:Hello NWO

[over_exposed]

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...

Criminals are stupid

[Neo-Rio-101]

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.

Google-osity

[iamdrscience]

Search Google for " wares". It comes up saying "Did you mean: warez".

Hehe, my brother pointed that one out to me.

Re:Hello NWO

[mcrbids]

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?

Re:...doesnt look good

[G-funk]

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?

Re:Hello NWO

[ddavis539]

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.

Pray for a Labor Victory

[ortcutt]

Let's all hope that Australian Labor Party wins the coming election and kicks out this lap-dog Howard government.

The Empire is history

[Oddly_Drac]

" 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.