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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.
Why is this news? Sounds to me like he broke a US law that the AU has an equivalent law about, and the us wants him to be on trial here first. Plus the AU has agreements with the US to comply. Sounds like SOP to me.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
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?
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Can someone point out a few cases where the news was somewhere along the lines of "American Extradited For Breaking [fill in foreign country] Law At Home" or does this business only work one way?
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.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
That's not the drum of revolution, it's the contented monotony of suburban life.
Most countries have extradition treaties, meaning they've specifically agreed to send citizens to foreign countries to face prosecution if a formal request is made. You actually want it this way. Wouldn't be much fun if criminals could commit crimes with impunity just because they weren't physically in a country. Now I'm not saying software piracy should be one of those crimes, but let's be real here. What if there was an organized crime boss, living in the US, ordering the deaths of Australian citizens? Would you want the US to extradite him to face justice or would you want them to say "Well he wasn't committing any crimes here, and since he's not in Australia you can't have him, sorry."
Since we don't want criminals using national borders to shield themselves, a large number of nations have extradition treaties with each other. There are restrictions on those treaties, for example Canada can refuse to extradite in cases where the person would face the death penalty, but in general if it is a legit request, the extradition is honoured.
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.
Sigs suck!
Why is this news?
Perhaps the fact that he isn't under US jurisdiction?
He most certainly is under US jurisdiction. We own the Australian government, which means we own Australia, which means we own your ass. Break our laws and we'll slam you in our prisons, because we can, and it makes us money to do so.
Welcome to the new world order, Bush (Sr., Jr.) and Clinton style.
Until Australia (and, for that matter, the UK) learns to stand up to the world's biggest bully (what to my immense shame is what my country, the United States, has become), they and their people will be under our jurisdiction, subject to our laws on their own soil, and with no protection from their own governments. Just like the soviet satellite states of the last century, we'll let you wave your own flags and call yourselves whatever you like, but fuck with us and our cash flow, and we'll slam you into our gulag.
You want this to not be the case? Then elect and demand a government with some backbone that will tell the United States exactly where it can get off.
... the war on terror made this extradition a lot easier?
Why, yes! I AM new here.
The Aus government is working it's way to being a U.S. state.
We are making our military hardware compatible with theirs, we are fighting in stupid profit based wars that go against the international community with them.
They don't hand over their war criminals for international trial, and now they expect everyone around the world to respect their laws.
Americas international standing is reducing every day. And judging by the media driven fear of the outside they are cultivating and the laughable democratic system and a retard for a president, they are well on the way to being the worst totalitarian state out there.
We have the names of U.S states and capitals rammed down our necks by countless TV shows and movies and they don't even know we have states.
I hope Iran/China/N. Korea gets some US citizens extradited too as part of this new high in international cooperation.
Not exactly, you signed up to the EU Extradited extradition which permits extradition for crimes including computer crimes (e.g. breaking DRM, no kidding). However that only applies to within the EU. But if the US can get a puppet government (e.g. Blairville) to issue a warrant for anyone in Europe, they can then extradite using the UK to US expedited extradition treaty.
o n_hacker/
There's no limits on re-extradition.
Worse, there is no judicial check in the UK, that the reasons given for the extradition, really complies with the requirements for extraditing. This is why a McKinnon (who broke US PCs into had a look around and left) is being accused of doing $5000 damage to each PC, in order for it to be a Federal crime and hence extraditable. The extradition mechanism doesn't let a UK judge check it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/25/extraditi
In theory they could make any allegation against any UK citizen and get them extradited (kidnapped in effect) and the court could do nothing.
[rant]F***ing Blair. We elected a leader, and he became a Bush follower and sold us out. I'll piss on his grave when he dies for the damage he's done to the UK sovereignty. [/rant]
US: All your Australians are belong to us.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Thankfully we still have some sanity here in NZ. Although there was perhaps some keenness to hitch up withAustralia in the 1980s and 1990s, less kiwis think thta way now.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Globalization is the word of the day .. Globalization is the theory of the day.
the GlobalJail may be the first real implementation.
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(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.
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.
...dummy /sarcasm
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
...that Australia no longer has genuine national sovereignty distinct from America. We haven't been our own people culturally or economically since the 80s, and the free trade agreement coupled with Howard's ongoing earnestness to subjugate himself to the American government as much as possible are just more nails in the coffin.
:(
The fools who were so adamant for Australia's split with the English monarchy now failed to realise one crucial detail; Australia's genuine independence is never going to happen. If we split with England entirely, America will rush in to fill the void before anyone can blink.
Welcome to the 51st state.
Somebody should have told this guy about OSS.
Before you hit the flamebait button, please listen: The issue here is more widespread than you think. In this case they were stealing software, breaking the anti-piracy measures and redistributing it. What about hacking a computer in another country, stealing credit cards and selling the cards or charging them? What about training radicals to hop onto planes and commit crimes in other countries? What about private groups of citizens launching rockets across the border into neighboring countries? In what jurisdiction does the crime occur? What if the other government refuses to prosecute? Should it escalate to a national or international conflict?
The fundamental questions is, what do you do when someone from another country harms your citizens or destroys their property? Criminals used run for the state or country border to avoid prosecution. No they just play in the fuzzy areas of national sovereignty. Many of the conflicts in the world follow this pattern. In this case Australia decided to hand the criminal over the the US for prosecution. Maybe they are trying to send a message to criminals hiding behind these gray areas of sovereignty.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
You are absolutely right! Foreign citizens have absolutely no rights for a trial when they are extradited to the US. But realistically the purpose of extradition was to provide a means of "reacquiring" US citizens who have committed crimes in the US and then fled to the safety of another country.
;) Sorry NewYorkCountryLawyer I really do like you.
I do not know much about Drink or Die but based on the article I would assume that they primarily reverse engineered copy protections and what not. If this is the case then I am not even sure how they would come up with an accurate number for damages. I personally believe that while it MAY be wrong to download music or whatever, under no circumstances is it wrong to provide someone with the information in order to do it themselves. Or we should arrest everyone who has ever shared any information that someone else could use for nefarious purposes, here are some examples that I think we should act upon immediately:
1. Scientists - these guys are constantly releasing information about different chemical compounds, not to mention explosives, and nuclear materials. All of which can be used for most evil of plots.
2. Anatomy Book Publishers - these guys release books teaching "students" about vital portions of the body. Now how many serial killers do you know that were never a student?
3. Lawyers - I am not even going to justify this one
4. Mothers/Fathers - When I was a kid my parents gave me the birds and the bees talk (you know the one about sex). Man now that information can be used in some pretty evil ways. It is a good thing that I am on slashdot and therefore am sexual incompetent so I have not been able to utilize this evil knowledge fully.
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
Someone needs to ask for the extradition of your president and our prime minister for crimes against humanity - starting illegal wars, killing 10,000s of civilian non-combatants, detention without trial and lots more bad things.
Obviously they are not illegal in the USA or the UK because they say so, but there are lots of places where this sort of behaviour is against the rules. If such extraditions are not a good thing, perhaps someone should say why mass murder is less important than intellectual "property".
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
To extend the situation...a lot of things that Americans do daily are illegal in other countries (especially muslim countries), and carry severe penalties (like stoning to death for having sex with someone you're not married to, for instance)...would you be happy for US citizens to be deported to those countries to face those punishments for 'crimes' committed in the US?
Did you pay the Harry Fox agency the appropriate license fee to reproduce those lyrics?
No?
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
If Raymond had broken U.S. law while in the U.S. then I would have no problem with this extradition. When you travel to another country you must abide by its laws. This was not the case however. This extradition sets the precedent of a citizen of a sovereign nation committing a crime on the soil of his own nation and being extradited and tried according to the laws of a foreign nation.
What is wrong with this? What's wrong is wrong, right? Well, the problem is that, in a democracy, citizens need to have a say in how they are governed. The law is not an absolute and universal code. It is there to serve the people, and the people are therefore responsible for writing the laws they are governed by. With these extraditions, suddenly citizens can be governed by laws they had no say or representation in writing.
If these extraditions are allowed to continue, citizens may face penalties for things that are legal in their own country, or penalties far harsher than their country would normally permit. As a ridiculous example, say that the U.S. signed such an extradition treaty with an asian nation where drug running was punishable by death. (Yes, this example is ridiculous because, as others have pointed out, the U.S. tends to be "more equal" than other nations in this sort of treaty.) Say that a U.S. citizen who never left U.S. soil masterminded a drug ring which was responsible for sending large ammounts of drugs to this asian country, so that asian country requested his extradition, got it, tried him, and executed him. (Again, I admit this example is ridiculous. I merely use it to convey the principle of my argument.)
This extradition sets a dangerous precedent, and I sincerely hope that the Australian government comes to its senses before it's too late. Protecting IP just isn't worth this kind of legal fascism.
"You remember the movie 'King Kong'"
Of course. I downloaded the DoD release.
Personally, I moderate on the merits of the post. I have stopped correcting spelling/grammar errors by followup comment as I've discovered that English is not the first language of many posters, although their point of view is as valid as mine. Please don't be misled by the fraction of slashdotters who are loud-mouthed assholes and swagger around like ultra-patriots. Since this is supposedly a free nation, all of us must suffer the inelegant employment of that freedom by some in order to justify our own. I repeat, we are not a monolithic nation, but I concede it could look that way from afar...
Yes, it still sounds unreasonable to me - outright ridiculous, in fact. Do you seriously want to tell me that ANY copyright infringement could ever be as bad as an "average" rape?
Get real. And see a shrink.
butter the donkey
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.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I think some people may be missing the point.
Griffiths has admitted to copyright infringement, which is criminal in both USA and Australia (and almost all other countries). It doesn't matter that the victim of the crime lives in another country; imagine if you could send threatening letters or bombs to someone, and get away with it just because the victim lives outside your country's jurisdiction. As long as you commit the act while being within the borders of your country, and the act is criminal, you could and should be put on trial.
The weird part is putting Griffiths on trial in USA instead of Australia. The act has been perpetrated on Australian soil by an Australian citizen, so Australian law and Australian courts should apply. Only the victim lives in USA.
I suspect this is yet another symptom of the hübris of US-American government: they think their rules should apply to everyone else. If a US citizen commits a crime against someone in a foreign country, he is put on trial in USA. If a foreign citizen commits a crime against someone in the USA, the US government wants to put him on trial in USA too. US government believes it should have the jurisdiction over any crime that is committed in USA, *or* by a US citizen, *or* against a US citizen, even though it conflicts with every other country's right to do the same.
And, of course, it's also a symptom of the lack of backbone of the rest of the world.
Not really. From outside the US I see a bunch of right-wingers arguing with another bunch of right-wingers about how far to the right the most acceptable form of government is. Now if you actually had a party that was on the left, then you might be able to call the voting public polarized, but until then...
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
You mean by sending an email to someone you become subject to the jurisdiction of the state they are in?
That sounds like bullcrap to me.
>> but as soon as the guy sent cracked IP to the US,
so what he should claim is that he never actually sent it, just that he made it available and others who happened to be in the US downloaded it.
There's a difference between the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. Under the Roman Republic, subject peoples were often ruthlessly exploited by Roman businessmen but the establishment of the Principate under Augustus brought the worst excesses to an end. The Roman Empire was a very benign superpower. The Romans (until the rise of Christianity) was a pluralist society that embraced all the cultures within its borders. Minorities (except Christians) were allowed to practice their beliefs without persecution as long as no-one was injured in the process. In most cases conquered nations were allowed to keep their own form of government, customs and legal systems with the understanding that Roman Law superceded local laws. As the oft quoted lines from Life of Brian go "Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" - Brought peace. Wherever the US goes, they rarely bring peace with them. They do bring, however, exploitative and ruthless businessmen.
Travelling forward in time at a rate of 1 second per second.
Since when did Australia get annexed to the USA ? As a Canadian I'm a bit jealous (psych!)
:P He's probably responsible for some heavy-duty stuff in the world of copyright law. On the other hand, what the hell kind of pansy-ass government ships off their own criminal to the states ? If Australia wants to prosecute their citizen, go nuts! If they don't, then leave him be. That's probably why he lives there in the first place. The internet makes it easy to participate in global activities, but so does the telephone and snail mail.
I'm divided on this issue. For one, the accused is a lead member of what was one of the largest software pirate groups in the world, which is pretty crazy compared to the buddy-trading we used to do in the 80's and 90's
I can't lie, I want to see this guy walk free, on principle. World leaders want to go on having their separate countries, distinct law systems and economic boundaries... well they have to go all the way! I don't think it's reasonable to open the borders whenever some high-ranking official deems it "necessary", but keep them closed for everything else. If Australia wants to be USA's sock puppet, they might as well become the 51st state and enjoy ALL the benefits of being part of the USA, including their foreign policy.
"G'day mate! I'm Canajun!"
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"If you simply note our last two Presidential elections, you'll see that we are as polarized as it gets..."
Sure, until you notice the fact that in the US 'left' politicians hold similar positions on contemporary political topics to those held by centrist politicians in most other nations. As for 'right' and 'far right' candidates....well, in most other countries they would most likely be locked up for being a public menace.
Sure, Americans are pretty polarized. But political opinion in the US appears to occupy only one half of the political spectrum.
Marc Emery
-EL
To demonstrate how har it is to reverse, the US started down this path with "The New Deal" and are still on it. Read up on how FDR coerced (a particular membr of) the Supreme Court by threatenting to expand it until he got enough people on it to agree with him. Then note how the court's decisions on what was unconstitutional abruptly reversed and started expanding government.
Democracy is incompatible with freedom and liberty.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
As an American, I agree with you, but for reasons having nothing to do with prison rape (which, incidentally, happens far more in state prisons than in federal prisons, and rarely if ever in the "club fed" type of minimum security prison to which a copyright offender would typically be sent).
My objection to this is over the simple fact that whatever crime(s) he may have committed were committed in Australia, so whether or not he should go to prison, and where and for how long, or even whether he should be arrested and tried, is purely a matter for the Australian government to decide. Extraditing him is ludicrous.
This is very different than, say, picking some terrorist up on the battlefield, finding he's an Australian citizen, and remanding him to the Australian government to serve his sentence in Australia after being convicted and sentenced. If that guy, who is a far worse criminal than a copyright offender, can serve his sentence in Australia, the accused in the present case should most certainly not be extradited at all.
Has the Australian government lost all concept of national sovereignty?
If you vote for a party or candidate that does not enter office, how has your vote counted at all? How is it any different from people that throw away their vote by not voting?
I dont vote. Why? Because the two big parties here (they constantly hover at ~45% and ~35% in polls) do exactly the same thing when they get elected - over and over again for the last 85 years or so. The remaining ~20% or so have zero power, and when they go into coalition always tow the majority line. How is that democracy? How is that worth voting for when you disagree totally with the 80% do and also quite a bit with what the remaining 20% do? 99% of politicians here are in it for the money. The remaining 1% are in it to get something done - and they soon realise they are wasting their time. Who would you vote for?
Feel free to play "guess the country" if you dont wish to discuss politics. That usually far more fun in fact.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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
If you could actually measure it, I'm betting that you are wrong. Every time we have a Republican administration in the US, we get 4-8 years of shocking corruption. Every Republican administration since Nixon, for example, has had an average of 8 times as many high-level officials convicted as each Dem administration. Carter may have been ineffectual, but he was clean. I'm born in '56 and there was only one relatively clean GOP administration in my lifetime, the one in power the day I was born.
Oh, there's scandals during the Dem admins, but they're usually BS, ala Whitewater.
You are welcome on my lawn.