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UK High Court 'Perma-Bans' Efforts to Extradite Lauri Love to the US (arstechnica.com)
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."
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."
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/
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.
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.
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."
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.
Lauri Love didn't murder anyone. He hacked into US servers, because he wanted to find out whether UFO conspiracies are true. He didn't even do anything nefarious with the data he found or publish it.
See that's the problem with you people, you're mentally insane when it comes to punishment and revenge. You miss all reasonableness and adequacy of punishment considerations. You're even fine with a systematic prison rape culture, but God forbid somebody shows a nipple on TV. You want everyone to be extradited swiftly to the US if it suits your agenda well, and at the same time threaten to invade the International Court of Justice with US military in case a US citizen might be accused there for crimes against humanity.
In a nutshell, you're a bunch of fucking hypocrites.