Slashdot Mirror
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."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Unfortunately, he will probably be convicted, since the Department of Justiucs has already made agreements with his fellow DrinkOrDie members to shorten their sentences if they testify against him. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109806,0 0.asp
Here is the DOJ memo announcing this arrest, quite possibly the only document the DoJ has released with both Ashcorft's name on it and the spelling of warez with a "Z" http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2001/December/01_crm_6 43.htm
U.S. law now supersedes the written laws of all sovereign nations? Why should I bother voting at all, if the ultimate authority lays in the hands of arrogant foreigners that do not represent me....
Skype Me! username: john_allen_mohammed
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
What next? Will I be extradited for having had sex with a 16-year-old (illegal in the US)? How about drinking alcohol in public, which is illegal in many countries (Saudi Arabia for instance), or hell - buying alcohol at the tender age of 15 (illegal in the US)? How about having had sex before I was 18 (also illegal in the US)? Having had sex outside of marriage (probably illegal in Iran)? Having had anal sex while there was a third party in the sexual congress (illegal in the UK).
I'm sure I've done SOMETHING that is perfectly legal where I live, that would be sentenced very harshly in other countries. Of course the things I just mentioned are things that "hurt" other people as opposed to the almighty profit of US coorporations, so I suppose that I won't be extradited anytime soon.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Why should someone who commits crimes against someone in another country not be held liable for those crimes simply because of geographic boundaires?
I'm not going to touch the definition of crime bit with regards to warez, but I think if you commit a crime, you should be tried by the laws of the country you were in at the time you commited it.
Think for yourself, destroy your television.
Tis a sad day when ye fellow pirate BanDiDo, now has t' be keel-hauled by these land lubbers, arrrg. And so close to the day too arrgg. Avast ye!
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/
Karma whoring
~~~
Sooner or later, the backlash against the USA will be enormous. And it will be unplesant to behold. After all, most of the world's manufacturing ain't done there... I certainly can't think of one DVD player, TV set, MP3 player (iPod included) that is made in the US. Their cars aren't the best (Dodge Neon, anyone). All that's left is a few billion dollars of entertainment industry (I'm ignoring their incredibly advanced arms industry for a sec...), and if that falls... whew. No Britney, no Ben Stiller, no ER, and no money to fund the next round of incredibly dangerous Plutonium Nyborg-tipped missiles. And, what do you know, the Chinese ones will be 10x more accurate, 100x cheaper, and available in a variety of pastels.
"Why should someone who commits crimes against someone in another country not be held liable for those crimes simply because of geographic boundaires?"
Sure. So an Brit who offends Robert Mugabe, apparently an offence in Zimbabwe, should be extradited to stand trial in Harare.
Right.
Under the UN charter, a person cannot be tried for an act which was not illegal at the time and place it was committed.
But then we are talking about the USA (in the article) and we all know how important respect for UN conventions and international treaties are for America...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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.
Been a bit out of touch for the last hundred-odd years, have you ?
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.
On the otherhand, if you were just trying to point out how you've had sex, then point taken.
Why are most of the posts here negatively directed at the US? After all, it was Austrailia that agreed to extradite this guy. Shouln't the negativity be directed there instead?
I've just read the item about the extradition proceedings involving the above. The item is incorrect. All that has happened so far is that a single Judge of the Federal Court of Australia has held that it is POSSIBLE for the Australian Government to extradite Griffiths to the US, if it chooses. If that decision is not reversed on any appeal, then the Australian Government (in the person of the Attorney-General) will decide whether to extradite Griffiths. If the Attorney-General decides to extradite (and sometimes A-Gs haven't, even though they had the power to do so) then Griffiths can challenge the lawfulness of that decision.
The reason this guy is under so much fire is simple: He violated copyright in a massive way ("US$50 million" worth) and corporations want to send a message that this is not okay. They're right: Australia respects US copyright law, and has extradiction treaties that can theoretically, and in this case demonstrably, be brought to bear on an offender.
So my question is, what country does not? Surely there is a country which simply doesn't care about western copyright, and does not have a system of laws and treaties under which the copyright of another country can cause extradition.
Now, here is the key to satiating my relentless craving for bits and bytes: the violation of copyright exists in the REPRODUCTION or DISTRIBUTION of material protected against such acts except where authorized. It says nothing about owning copyright materials.
Have you noticed that it doesn't matter how many pirate DVD's or videos you have, it is the houses with a thousand BURNERS churning out the pirate goods that get raided? THIS IS THE LAW.
So, I figure I can go to a government in which 100% of American bits and bytes are in the public domain, pay the government-owned publishing house a modest fee, and return with 100,000 pages of everything I'd ever want to read, for example, for pennies on the gram-square-meter.
This is the same as when I buy a jazz CD from 1942 sources that in France is in the public domain. (As I understand it.)
The consumer is NOT LIABLE.
Okay, comments?
I'll be extradited from the US to China for violating their censorship laws.
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.
It seems somewhat ironic that the US is so keen to extradite this fellow for what we hope is a fair trial, but are not prepared to return David Hicks or Mamdouh Habib to Autralia or to try them in a civilian court.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Excuse me, why should a new zealand citizen abide to US law especially if he's never been there? I am dutch and can smoke whatever I want. Does this mean the subpoena's will start showing up at my doorstep?
Is this a new form of colonialism? Do we all 6.3 billion have to abide to the law of a mere 300 million?
" 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.