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UK High Court 'Perma-Bans' Efforts to Extradite Lauri Love to the US (arstechnica.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the this-scepter'd-isle dept.

The U.K.'s High Court will not send Lauri Love to face trial in the U.S. for hacking government computer systems. Instead they've issued a final refusal to overturn Love's successful appeal of his extradition, Ars Technica reports, "effectively ending the extradition effort permanently." Love was originally arrested in the UK in October of 2013 after using an automated scanner to locate servers within a large range of IP addresses for SQL injection and ColdFusion vulnerabilities and then breaching vulnerable systems and installing Web shells to give him remote administrative-level access. He allegedly managed to compromise servers belonging to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the U.S. Army, the Federal Reserve, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Love's attorneys fought the extradition on the grounds that Love -- who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, severe depression, and antibiotic-resistant eczema -- would not get appropriate medical attention in a U.S. prison and would be at risk of suicide if he faced the potential 99-year prison term associated with the charges...

The U.S. had already essentially dropped efforts to extradite Love, but the ruling by the High Court now sets legal precedent that may bar future extraditions of British citizens on hacking charges. In a statement e-mailed to Ars, Naomi Colvin -- acting director of the Courage Foundation, an organization that has assisted Love in his extradition appeal -- said that as a result of the ruling, "there is now very little prospect of any British hacker ever finding themselves in the same position as Lauri Love or Gary McKinnon. Fifteen years of terrible public policy in which British hackers were left open to the vindictive instincts of US prosecutors have now been brought to an end."
Lauri Love told the site that with this ruling, "The era of the U.S. Department of Justice as world police is over."

11 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. We can't send him to trial... by Entrope · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ... because he might be upset at the prospect of losing!

    Someone needs to remind the Brits that if Love didn't want to do the time, he shouldn't have done the crime. If he can't be responsible for his own actions, he needs to be kept in a facility where someone else is responsible for him.

    1. Re:We can't send him to trial... by DamonHD · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) Where did he do the crime? Why should be be sucked into the nastiest jurisdiction that his packets passed through? It's a genuinely unresolved issue, legally.

      2) The huge asymmetry between extradition in either direction, coupled with the posturing of US officials, has reduced willingness by everyone including the courts to see US prosecution as likely to be fair and proportionate. Eventually posturing has consequences.

      Rgds

      Damon

      --
      http://m.earth.org.uk/
    2. Re:We can't send him to trial... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Someone needs to remind the Brits that if Love didn't want to do the time, he shouldn't have done the crime

      He can do the time in Britain where he lives and was located when he committed the crime. That sounds much more fair than sending him to a crazy country that locks up a startlingly large fraction of its own population.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:We can't send him to trial... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1) I'm not even going to discuss this as it's clearly utter bollocks; two seconds of thought should, if you aren't a swivel-eyed rightard, reveal why that is the case.
      2) The US does not extradite its citizens except in very rare circumstances, even to countries with better-functioning criminal justice systems (i.e. most western democracies, though the UK's is increasingly creaking at the seams). Nobody requests extradition from the US because there are only so many times you can ask the same question, getting the same answer, before you admit it's pointless and stop doing that. Definition of insanity, etc.

    4. Re:We can't send him to trial... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nobody requests extradition from the US because there are only so many times you can ask the same question, getting the same answer, before you admit it's pointless and stop doing that. Definition of insanity, etc.

      Then it's time to drop those extradition treaties as nonfunctional and dangerous to your own citizens.

    5. Re:We can't send him to trial... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Any proof that he actually stole anything of value or profited from his so-called crimes? This was more like a drunk teenager climbing the fence into my backyard, looking around, and maybe making a commotion. Yeah, some Americans' response might be to shoot without asking questions, but fortunately, the British know better.

    6. Re:We can't send him to trial... by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Insightful

      -- possibly because the US is much more effective at punishing criminals who have victimized citizens of the UK.

      Bullshit. Plenty of IRA members - murderers & actual terrorists when the word meant something - fled to the US and were never sent back.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:We can't send him to trial... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thing is, the US encourages plea bargaining, and punishes people who dare exercise their right to a fair trial (if they lose) disproportionately. The reduced sentences you mention are often only given with a plea bargain.

      Picture this: you're falsely accused of a crime and too poor to afford a good lawyer. Would you rather risk 30 years in prison, no parole, at trial, or will you plead guilty to a lesser felony, do a year in prison, and come out marked as a felon for life. Many people are pressured into doing the latter even if they're not actually guilty of anything.

      The US "justice" system is evil, and generally run by evil/corrupt people.

    8. Re:We can't send him to trial... by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not if we prosecuted fewer crimes. Start ignoring simple drug possession, even sale among adults. Moral laws, like laws against gambling or online gambling, out the window. Same goes for laws against sex between consenting adults of sound mind. Public drinking? Same thing.

      Live and let live, let people do what they want to with their own bodies and minds. Getting rid of crimes where people are only hurting themselves would go a long way towards freeing up the courts to give everyone a fair trial in more serious cases.

  2. Same in reverse. by orlanz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Other than the precedence reinforcement (good thing), I don't see much news here. The US and UK would have done the same as the other if the situation was reversed. The guy didn't kill any one. And even if he had, the conclusion would have been the same both ways if he faced execution.

  3. Good by chill · · Score: 2, Insightful

    His crime wasn't hacking, it was embarrassing the U.S. Gov't.

    There is NO excuse for having your public IP address space exposing well known, script-kiddie flaws. Every one of those Federal Agencies has teams of people who are responsible for securing their systems, not to mention external contractors performing penetration tests.

    He didn't do anything creative, just run common scanners against a wide IP space, and run point-and-click tools. If he found all that with so little effort, you can bet others did, too.

    SQL Injection has been the OWASP #1 for about a decade now.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.