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Kim Dotcom Can Be Extradited To US On Copyright Charges, New Zealand Court Rules (yahoo.com)
schwit1 shares a report from Yahoo News: Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom suffered a major setback in his epic legal battle against online piracy charges Thursday when New Zealand's Court of Appeal ruled he was eligible for extradition to the United States. The German national, who is accused of netting millions from his file sharing Megaupload empire faces charges of racketeering, fraud and money laundering in the U.S., carrying jail terms of up to 20 years. Dotcom had asked the court to overturn two previous rulings that the Internet mogul and his three co-accused be sent to America to face charges. Instead, a panel of three judges backed the FBI-led case, which began with a raid on Dotcom's Auckland mansion in January 2012 and has dragged on for more than six years. His lawyer tweeted he would appeal to the NZ Supreme Court.
that's disgusting. US laws now World Laws? I'm expat soon
and hold out somewhere else that doesn't extradite.
Maybe Snowden would like some company?
I know I should side with Kim. But ... it's hard to side with Kim. Every time I do, I feel like recounting my fingers to see whether I still have all of them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Only sometimes, and this is one of those times.
The whole thing is a shakedown, pure and simple - the FBI-led raid had KDC's wife and children held at gunpoint because KDC "was a firearms enthusiast". Despicable that our US-Ass-Kissing Government we let ourselves get conned into this bullshit.
How can KDC and his associates are charged with "criminal copyright"... what even is that? Did anyone ever die from a movie being downloaded?
I sincerely hope our Supreme Court has the good sense to deny the extradition, then my shame might decrease.
The key to extradition between countries is that the accusation needs to be for a crime for which an extradition treaty exists. Between the US and NZ, here is a listing (which is typical of other country treaties with the US): https://internationalextraditi... ... I did RTFA, but did not find a link to the NZ court ruling to confirm the extent to which this bilateral extradition treaty was the basis for the ruling.
Dotcom is accused of racketeering and money laundering, which would seem to be covered in the treaty section on fraud: "16. Obtaining property, money or valuable securities by false pretenses or by conspiracy to defraud the public or any person by deceit or falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether such deceit or falsehood or any fraudulent means would or would not amount to a false pretense." The definition of racketeering is something like, "dishonest and fraudulent business dealings."
International extradition treaties are part of why plaintiffs and prosecutors seek such high crimes, in their charges. The article links to the US court filing, if you want to see the full list. Another reason is that, in the US, criminal charges are made at the highest possible level of seriousness, so that there will be a plea bargain for a lower charge, rather than bringing a case all the way to the end. Federal prosecutions in the US very rarely result in Not Guilty or in charges being dismissed (under 5%).
That EU law that got struck down yesterday was part of an industry effort to add copyright infringement to the set of laws that would let enforcement cross national boundaries. For copyright, there is no current international extradition (at least, not with the US -- the EU has been doing its own thing). The Berne Convention, and associated treaties under WIPO, are the applicable international treaties for copyright, and do not make provisions for extradition or international enforcement for copyright violation. The fact that international boundaries are usually very easy to cross via Internet traffic is a big concern for publishers, media companies, etc., and they have been trying for a long time to extend reach of copyright laws beyond national boundaries.
One of the earliest such cases was in 2000, and involved a US copyright law forbidding reverse engineering of encryption. The DeCSS case, https://www.technewsworld.com/..., was to bring charges against Jon Johansen in Norway for posting a decryption program. Nowadays, I would expect charges in US courts would also include crimes for which extradition treaties apply, like fraud and larceny. This is easily achieved by stipulating large $ damages (due to lost revenue, piracy, etc.).
More recently, we know that Julian Assange is concerned about being extradited to the US under a secret indictment in the US courts. The rape charges in Sweden were sufficient for extradition from the UK (https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-of-justice/international-judicial-co-operation/extradition-for-criminal-offences/), but Ecuador has an approach that gives higher priority to avoiding torture than the bilateral treaties. The Guardian has a nice short cheeky piece about why Edward Snowden was also thought to be en route to Ecuador, before he ended up staying in Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
We are getting the picture, right? The US isn't the only country that seeks very high-level crimes in what are basically copyright cases, nor are they the only country where moneyed business interests are able to get the ear of criminal courts for issues that are, essentially, civil cases (a distinction that matters a lot in countries that follow common law... less so for countries with different legal heritage, like Ge