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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.
Perhaps the fact that he isn't under US jurisdiction?
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?
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!
Assuming you're American, would you want to be extradited to Australia for breaking an Australian law in the US even though you'd never been to Australia?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
A sovereign country's citizens should be tried under that country's law, unless the US fancies an international court to handle international crimes.
They do.
Just so long as it doesn't involve US citizens. Or military personnel.
Except in your example the crime boss is committing a crime under US law on US soil. I don't believe the law differentiates who is being killed in that case. I honestly can't think of any reason why someone should be extradited in this way. If you are doing something which is legal in your home country, should another country be able to extradite you? No. It's not illegal. If you're doing something that is illegal in your home country, should another country be able to extradite you? No. You should be charged under the laws of your own country.
The only reason any of this seems OK is because it's going on between countries with similar laws. If the laws of two countries are too different nobody would thing it was a good idea. It would be like the US trying to extradite someone from Amsterdam for smoking pot. What if Iran decided it wants to extradite someone for breaking their laws? Doesn't seem like such a good idea does it?
You'll be hearing shortly from the government of Nigeria. Your comments about their citizens were deemed to be illegal under Nigerian legal code Section 13.43b and you will be extradited to face criminal charges there.
Have a nice day.
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]
(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.
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.
Remember that "The USA" is not really equivalent to the US nation and its people. The foreign and domestic politics of "The USA" are designed to maximize the wealth of a few dozen families that controls Congress and most big business in the US. At the expense of millions of Americans that has to do with living on minimum wage. The USA as the World Police is a construction created to serve these families interests, not the American people. The American people are just as much the victim of it as everyone else.
Football Odds
Unfortunately, a few too many Australians. 40% of them voted for him directly, and another 6% for the national party with which they have a formal alliance. Due to the allocation of preferences this allowed them to ultimately win power. But you could not say that the majority of voters directly voted for him at the last election.
It certainly looks like alot less are going to vote for him now for our unconditional support in invading Iraq. The disaster that Iraq has proven to be wasn't so evident in 2004 at the last election, at least to the general public.
Its not like that many Australian companies have even had sweetheart deals with Iraq - so its hard to see even the commercial gain for the venture for Australia.
Whilst I think that most Australians (myself included) would support the US in any war or real threat to US soil, few of us really want to go invading other countries without good reason. One of the major holidays in Australia, ANZAC day, reminds us yearly of the horrors of unnecessary wars. The words we repeat at the end of the dawn service is "Lest we forget". It reflects the Australian ethos that war is a bad thing, and we should remember this. Sadly, it would seem that John Howard did forget the horror of war when he chose to support the invasion of Iraq.
Anyway, for the majority of Australians who didn't actually vote for John Howard at the last election, I think we are entitled to grumble a little.
But I certainly agree with you that we have no right to blame the US for our mistakes. Including John Howard. That was all our own doing.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
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...
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.