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Should British Hacker Lauri Love Be Tried In America? (theguardian.com)
A 31-year-old autistic man in the U.K. is suspected of hacking U.S. government computer systems in 2013 -- and he has one final chance to appeal his extradition. An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian
Even if Love is guilty, however, there are important legal and moral questions about whether he should be extradited to the US -- a nation that has prosecuted hackers with unrivalled severity, and one where Love could be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison... His remaining hope for mercy is a final appeal against extradition in the high court in November. Love's hope is for a full and fair trial in Britain.
Even if he is found guilty in a British court of the most serious crimes in the US government's indictment, his legal team estimate that he faces just a few months in prison. Failure means Love will be flown to a holding facility in New York, placed on suicide watch and probably forced to take antidepressants, prior to a trial. If he refuses to accept a plea deal and is convicted, he will face $9m (£6.8m) in fines and, experts estimate, a prison term of up to 99 years, a punishment illustrative of the US's aggressive sentencing against hackers under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Naomi Colvin, from the human rights group the Courage Foundation, tells the Guardian that "Lauri's case is critically important in determining the reach of America's unusually harsh punitive sanctions for computer crimes."
Even if he is found guilty in a British court of the most serious crimes in the US government's indictment, his legal team estimate that he faces just a few months in prison. Failure means Love will be flown to a holding facility in New York, placed on suicide watch and probably forced to take antidepressants, prior to a trial. If he refuses to accept a plea deal and is convicted, he will face $9m (£6.8m) in fines and, experts estimate, a prison term of up to 99 years, a punishment illustrative of the US's aggressive sentencing against hackers under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Naomi Colvin, from the human rights group the Courage Foundation, tells the Guardian that "Lauri's case is critically important in determining the reach of America's unusually harsh punitive sanctions for computer crimes."
No-one should ever be extradited to some shithole they never set foot in. If he broke Britsh law, let him be tried in the UK by an applicable court. If the Americans claim he violated US law, give them a lecture about jurisdiction and be done with it.
No "ordinary" citizen can possibly afford the cost of invoking the american legal system. It is ruinously expensive and the entire prosecution system knows and relies on that fact.
As a consequence hardly any but the richest can even get as far as a "presumption of innocence" as that requires going to trial and the phenominal financial burn-rate that entails. So ordinary citizens simply have to take whatever sentence the prosecutors offer them. No trial, no evidence, no judgement - just "sign here" and then wait for your prison uniform.
And for foreigners the cost of mounting a defence is even higher. For crimes that weren't even committed on american soil the defence has to bear the added cost of transporting and accommodating any witnesses or experts they need to call. Even british millionaires have been broken by this system.
So in a country where "to be accused is to be guilty", there is no possibility that this guy would ever see justice. Either with or without being able to submit his autism as a defence or mitigation
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
No crime was committed on US soil. Consider that if China made a law saying no-one could access certain websites, should an American who never left their country be tried in China for violating that law?
On top of that, the US has a dreadful record of human rights abuses when it comes to the incarcerated and a legal system that funnels people into private prisons with the emphasis being on revenue generation, not rehabilitation. Their record in such cases is one of extreme and disproportionate punitive measurements enacted out of embarrassment caused to their institutions, not response to the crime committed. That alone makes the case for extradition indefensible, and Britain should refuse.
Of course: he committed the crimes against US computers, the crime happened there, so he should be extradited if the extradition treaty between UK and US provides for this.
A politician war criminal like for example, german nazis, have committed their crimes basically all over Europe and Asia, never set foot into the countries they attacked, the extermination camps were not in the German Reich either but in occupied areas, etc.. In the Nuremberg trials they still were sentenced to the harshest sentenced possible for these kind of crimes, even when they never set foot at the place where the crime happened. So there really is a lot of legal precedent for this.
If the US laws are too harsh, then this is a different problem. The defendant can't decide where to get sentenced based on the most lenient laws he can choose from. This is not what "in dubio pro reo" means...
Answer: look in the extradition treaty.
If you don't like "America's unusually harsh punitive sanctions for computer crimes", get your government to renegotiate the treaty.
He did not commit any crime while in the US jurisdiction so no. He was in the UK at the time and subject to UK law so he should only be tried in the UK. To do otherwise means that the UK has lost all sovereignty because then while in the UK you don't just have to follow UK law but also US law over which the UK has no control.
Extradition is intended to prevent someone committing a crime while in a country's jurisdiction and then running away to a foreign country to escape answering for it. If the US does not think that UK law is strict enough to prevent hacking attacks like this the solution is to block all internet connections from the UK not try to enforce US law on someone who has probably never even visited the US.
You raise an interesting point. These days there is little difference in the idea of extraditing people to the former Soviet Union and the current United States, the criminal justice system in the US having such apoor reputation globally. Of course there are many nations that are worse but that is not an excuse for a supposedly free country.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
The article gets wrong the priority of the U.S. Constitution and the statute he would be sentenced under. It is unconstitutional to give a cruel and unusual punishment. No U.S. law can permit it. If the sentencing guidelines would calculate a cruel and unusual punishment, it is illegal as being unconstitutional.
Given that the hack he is accused of carrying out for was defacing the U.S. Commission for sentencing guidelines, and protesting sentences against hackers as being too harsh, if he is convicted it is hard to say that he didn't know he had it coming. He would have actually studied up on the punishment before doing the crime.
U.S. Prosecutors will probably offer a deal: turn on your compatriots for a reduced sentence. Prosecution in Great Britain will have little leverage to force that.
You know you've jumped the shark when your defence is "well, we're no worse than China or Russia!"
Of course, the US does have considerably more of their population imprisoned than China does.
The US government allegedly needed to spend $5,000,000 on improving security after the incident. Of course, those were the same improvements that they needed to make even before the incident happened, judging by the fact that it was able to happen in the first place. Actual damages caused were... were there any?
In any event, if this individual is extradited and sent to the U.S. and incarcerated there, a free name change should defintely be provided to him.
He isn't going to do well in the US Prison System as a male with a name like "Lauri Love".
There are cultural differences, and sensitivity needs to be applied.
What shithole do you live in? I'll bet it wouldn't take more than 2 minutes of searching to find many areas where your freedoms, privacy, and other rights are trampled on far worse every day than we have it in the US.
As far as reputation goes, that's irrelevant because it is created by echo chamber jerk offs who know nothing. Only reality counts.
And the reality is that the US so-called justice system applies unevenly along with its civil portion. There is no we when it comes to this.
More like if you leave your shop with the door unlocked, the lights on, and the "yes, we're open" sign still displayed on the door, should I be charged with trespass if I go inside?
Seriously? Can you imagine a court in Russia ruling against Putin?? In the USA the government often loses cases.
Give enough time from one party in power. Your government is not less corrupted than in Russia, judicial appointments are very, very political in the US.
So if you leave your front door unlocked and I come in and remove some items, you're saying that that's ok, because you didn't make an effort to deter me?
It's more like among all the pretty much identical open storefronts in a mall, walking into one random open store gets you a Federal felony illegal entry charge and prison time.
What this really is all about is government bureaucrats and officials covering their asses because they allowed a server with sensitive data they were responsible for to be wide open on the intertubes.
It's the same psychology at work here as with punishing individuals who report vulnerabilities/bugs.
"Kill the messenger!"
Notice that no government officials nor bureaucrats have been hauled into court and prosecuted for placing sensitive materials on an open server. Everyone is distracted by the Kabuki theater around Mr. Love, and Mr. McKinney before him. These government criminals think nothing of hanging innocent people to cover for their own incompetence, criminality, and corruption.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.