Australian Extradited For Breaking US Law At Home

An anonymous reader sends us a link to a report in The Age about an Australian resident, who had never set foot in the US and broke US intellectual-property laws in Australia, being extradited to the US to face trial. Hew Raymond Griffiths pleaded guilty in Virginia to overseeing all aspects of the operation of the group Drink Or Die, which cracked copy-protected software and media products and distributed them for free. He faces up to 10 years in a US jail and half a million dollars in fines.

Comments

Sad

[dsanfte]

It's been common knowledge for years that Howard is Bush's lapdog, but if his government isn't even willing to protect its own citizens from foreign prosecutions, how can you really say Australia isn't just a puppet state of the US?

Re:Sad

[1u3hr]

Hey, you get in line behind MY government. The UK were putting their citizens at risk by poodling up to Bush before yours! You're not a real poodle until you've had at least 50 civilians killed on your own mainland by religious fanatics, displeased at misguided foreign policy.

Well, we had about 80 Australian tourists blown up in Bali by fanatics who wanted to protest against American policies, and thought we were close enough. Unfortunatley, while they were actually correct in that, the Americans themselves hardly noticed.

Needs to be said

[eclectro]

Others, however, argue that extradition is necessary to prevent internet crimes that transcend borders.

But yet nothing is done to catch the 419 scammers and all the spammers selling (often fake) pharmaceuticals.

Glad to be German

[Nahooda]

I'm a bit stunned that Australian law obviously allows extraditing their citizens to other countries. Here in Germany such action is _strictly_ prohibited by the German Constitution.

Re:Glad to be German

[Xonea]

That is no longer true; the german constitution has been changed recently and now allows extraditions of germans to other countries of the european union or to an international court. You can't be extradited to the USA though :)

(This is specified in Art. 16 (2) GG: http://www.datenschutz-berlin.de/recht/de/gg/gg1_d e.htm#art16 )

Re:Glad to be German

[pjt33]

However, the US hasn't, and won't sign their half !!!

Actually, see this press release from a week and a half ago:

The United Kingdom and United States have today ratified a bilateral extradition treaty

Took them a long time, but they've finally done it.

Re:Why is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the fact that he isn't under US jurisdiction? He ran an organization which operated in the US. This is no different than drug lords in Columbia being wanted by US authorities. It's also the same as legitimate companies being liable for what their company does in every country they operate.

This is entirely unacceptable.

[NickHydroxide]

This is horrendous. I don't condone what he has done, but I contend that this should fall squarely and solely within the sovereign boundaries of Australia. We have a perfectly acceptable method of pursuing him for the same offence - either s 132AC(1) or s 132AC(2) of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), which provide respectively:

(1) A person commits an offence if:

                                          (a) the person engages in conduct; and

                                          (b) the conduct results in one or more infringements of the copyright in a work or other subjectmatter; and

                                          (c) the infringement or infringements have a substantial prejudicial impact on the owner of the copyright; and

                                          (d) the infringement or infringements occur on a commercial scale.

(2) An offence against subsection (1) is punishable on conviction by a fine of not more than 550 penalty units or imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both.

                          (3) A person commits an offence if:

                                          (a) the person engages in conduct; and

                                          (b) the conduct results in one or more infringements of the copyright in a work or other subjectmatter; and

                                          (c) the infringement or infringements have a substantial prejudicial impact on the owner of the copyright and the person is negligent as to that fact; and

                                          (d) the infringement or infringements occur on a commercial scale and the person is negligent as to that fact.

Penalty: 120 penalty units or imprisonment for 2 years, or both. There is absolutely no reason to extradite him except for political convenience or expediency, which should NEVER be a basis for depriving someone so severely of their status as a citizen. As Justice Young noted, we should beware allowing (and effecting) foreign prosecutions where the conduct is almost entirely referential to Australia.

If equivalent offences were not in existence in Australia, then perhaps I might be more willing to accept it (although even then I would have drastic reservations). As it stands, I cannot accept this.

Re:Looks like he violated...

[pelrun]

No. The guy is australian, broke australian law whilst in australia - why the F**K is he being tried in America again?

If you break a law in a country you get tried IN THAT COUNTRY. Extradition works to preserve that - if you break the law then leave the country, you can be extradited BACK to that country to stand trial.

Re:Vice versa

[lime_red]

A quick search turned up a story on Duane "Dog" Chapman, a supposed bounty hunter who was wanted in Mexico. I hadn't heard of this until I looked it up so I can't guarantee any facts. He was arrested by US marshals and held pending being extradited to Mexico (some TV show's coverage). It looks like they'll extradite him unless his supporters can convince the Mexican government to drop the charges (resolution here).

I also have another one of a foreigner being sent to the US -- so it's not just Australia -- not that that's a good thing.

Some conjecture that I can't back up follows: I've read that the US rarely agrees to send their citizens overseas, rather just denying the extradition requests when they are in the courts.

Re:Women must be 2nd class here

[mrchaotica]

According to TFA, the average imprisonment term is less than that of copyright infringement.

No, the average rape sentence is less than the maximum copyright infringement sentence. To compare properly, you have to compare maximum to maximum or average to average. The maximum rape sentence is probably life in prison (or maybe death in some states); the average copyright infringement is probably considerably less than 10 (or even 6) years.

Still sound as unreasonable as it did before?

USA - Australia Free Trade Agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

Australians would do well to read the IP section of thier free trade agreement with the USA

http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/o utcomes/08_intellectual_property.html

Re:Vice versa

[xtracto]

But the difference the Duane Chapman case is that he broke a law while he was *in* Mexico, bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, he commited a crime *in* Mexico and thus Mexican justice system wants to judge him, hence the extradition.

Whereas this case is about an Australian guy who commited a crime *in* Australia and the gringos want to fsck him just because ... because. The guy should have been tried and convicted in Australia, where he commited the crimes. I agree with the analogy made by other poster about smoking pot in Amsterdam, it is illegal to smoke pot under USA laws, they should arrest all the US Americans that go to Amsterdam just to get high when they return, because they did something seen as illegal under USA laws, no mattering the place where they broke the law.

Re:Vice versa

[ZzzzSleep]

Yes, but "Dog" actually committed the crime in Mexico. This guy hasn't been to the US and was willing to plead guilty in an Australian court. This is a fucked up situation here.

First?

[camperdave]

The USA is the world's most progressive nation, in the sense that it is the first and best democracy...

Honestly, is that what they teach you in America? The word democracy is an ancient Greek word. Why would the ancient Greeks have a word for something that didn't exist until 1776? Because democracy existed long before the United States did. India was a democracy 8000 years ago, Afghanistan and Pakistan 6000 years ago. The Iroquois Confederacy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Althing in Iceland, early medieval Ireland, the Veche in Slavic countries... all democracies, all before the US came into being.

Re:First?

[CODiNE]

Born in the US, went to public school K-12 and I can say that yes, that is what they teach us. We are required to spend a year in high school studying "US History" and are also required to spend a year studying "World History". Other than that, when you're in elementary school you learn things like Thanksgivings day really happened and it isn't a myth like scholarly research might tell you. Honestly I've only heard of the Greek democracies, but we certainly didn't spend any time actually studying them or how they were organized, there was a brief mention of it, but no great thanks and respect taught. But we did spend a year with our required "Government" class in high school... learning words like bicameral and how the constitution was written.

Really, learning wasn't enjoyable to me at all until after I got out of school. Then I started making up for all the stuff they never taught me. I had it better than the kids now do, a month or two ago kids I know from two different school districts in two different states both told me they spent everyday studying for the upcoming standardized school exams. They teachers now literally throw aside the normal studies and focus for an entire month on gaming the school rankings tests. These kids know the test is coming up and that's all they do until it's over with. Really sad that they don't focus on educating people and teaching them how to think, instead they focus on rote memorization and repeating what you heard. Mighty convenient that.

Re:He most certainly IS under US jurisdiction

[smchris]

Truth hurts.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00. html

Hope is very pleasant and all but once a nation starts down a road it can be hard to reverse course. Things can get _much_ worse. Empire is incompatible with democracy.

Re:He most certainly IS under US jurisdiction

[sabre86]

US laws -- and constitutional rights -- apply to US citizens. Wrong. Well, not wrong as a statement, but too limited in scope. The U.S. Constitution doesn't create the rights it talks about, it specifically excludes the U.S. government from infringing on them, and not just for U.S. citizens, but for everybody. The Bill of Rights is a set of Limitations on the government power, not an instantiation of Rights. Those rights already exist. The underlying assumption, as expressed in Declaration of Independence and other works, is that those rights are inherent to each and every human being, and that governments are only just and legitimate when they respect those rights. It never refers to "citizens," but always to "people." Thus, the protections in the Constitution apply to everyone the U.S. government interacts with. To argue otherwise, that Constitutional protections apply only to Citizens, destroys the whole idea of democracy by creating the ruling class and allows for fun things like slavery -- "of course slavery is legal, the Constitution applies only to citizens and the slaves aren't!"

Unfortunately, our current government has decided that it is not in fact a limited government and has repeatedly ignored the Constitution. Even the courts have noted this. Hopefully, hopefully we will be able to steer things back on course before it's too late. But that hope strikes me as dim, given the fact that Congress, for instance, has so much it can impeach the president for -- Gitmo, Warrantless searches, authorizing torture, denying habeus corpus, etc -- but has done nothing.

--sabre86

Re:Why is this news?

[zero_offset]

The short explanation is that the charge and investigation originates in the US.
I go into slightly more detail here.

I am also not a lawyer, although years ago I dated one from South Florida who happened to deal with extraditions, mainly South American stuff, so I heard a lot about it. Regarding your speculative question, generally extradition laws also require that the punishment guidelines in both jurisdictions be reasonably similar.

Re:Why is this news?

[smchris]

1. The USA is the world's most progressive nation, in the sense that it is the first and best democracy,

From what I remember about rankings last time I looked at various world surveys:

one of the most disliked nations on the planet
about 130th in citizen happiness
53rd in literacy
45th in press freedom
lower 30s in math and science literacy
high teens in longevity
About seventh in social mobility
Gross Domestic Product: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2007/01/the_di stributio.html

The South African constitution explicitly protects gays and they are one of several countries with gay marriage
one of the greatest income disparities in the world
one of a couple of the 35 industrialized nations that still executes citizens
one of a couple of the top 7 industrialized nations without national health care
highest per capita imprisonment in the world

Are most new democracies choosing a republican government or a parliamentarian government? And why?

And Switzerland might have a word to say about the "world's first democracy".

Sociology and Political Science grad here. Just saying.

Re:Women must be 2nd class here

[Anonymous Coward]

The length of a life sentence in the US is however long it takes for you to die, modulo parole.

Re:voting for the other guy

[tdelaney]

It counts because *Australia has preferential voting*. If after the primary vote is counted, the party you voted for as your first preference has the lowest number of votes, that party is eliminated from the race and its votes are redistributed to other other parties according to your *second* preference. This continues until there are only two parties left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting

Whilst this system of counting is not the best, statistically speaking (the best are Condorcet methods, though they also have their weaknesses) it is simple to understand (and count), and in the vast majority of cases results in the candidate who is most preferred by the most number of people being elected.

The US method of "plurality" voting is statistically the *worst* method available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system