British Student Loses Extradition Battle Over Copyright Violation

The logical conclusion of the current trend is the US suing most of the world for copyright violation because they mention "freedom" in their constitutions.

Really extradition? We wasted the time and money on a petty offense. Our nation has been eating lead paint chips for too long. We have no business trying and aressting people who have never even been inside our borders. Leave him to the hands of his own government.

Unfortunately for him, the United Kingdom does not actually have constitutional protections as we understand them. If Parliament passes a law, it's legal.

So, for example, the UK will extradite to America based on "reasonable suspicion," per the Act 2003.

Ah, no.

However, if it is not possible to interpret an Act of Parliament so as to make it compatible with the Convention, the judges are not allowed to override it. All they can do is issue a declaration of incompatibility.

An individual can still take his case to the Strasbourg court

Because the current US Government gives two shits what international courts say, and because the UN or anybody else is going to actually attempt to oppose the US with anything better than angry letters and useless sabre rattling.

I mean, yeah, I think the guy deserves to get nailed somehow, but this is such an absurd waste of time and money—and makes us look so much like petty jackasses—that it's idiotic...

Well, maybe that was the point. Tug on Britain's leash a little.

If the American government just wanted to fine the guy I would think it would shaky but be sort of like "whatever", but we can't send him over there for five years in jail when he didn't even break the law here! We must surely have some kind of law that would be against this extradition? I just can't understand how it could be legal.

edited 20th Jan '12 12:41:25 AM by ArlaGrey

The uk should ban the extradition of brits outright. The French and the Germans do, and they get away with it.

And before reading it, I thought everyone did that.

Which would be a silly move, because it would not exactly strengthen the fast-eroding support for the farce of a "special relationship" in Britain.

This was bullshit of the first order. There are sociopathic assholes trying to blow shit up I'd rather see all this effort expended on.

Wasn't this same situation done, but in reverse (an American extradited to England), not too long ago? I'm fairly sure that the USA does not have a one-way extradition treaty with Great Britain.

I think we've got to rethink the whole extradition business: Considering all the countries that are now claiming some form of universal jurisdiction and how many of them have appallingly authoritarian laws, perhaps we ought to stop extraditing people altogether: Your citizens should never be subject to another a foreign power's law when they are not there.

But, according to the reports on this story, .com and .net domains are U.S. territory and so subject to its laws.

That's why they can seize the domain, but charging the site owner is really stretching it.

Surely doing business with the US from overseas doesn't subject you to their criminal laws, does it? You're subject to prosecution in the country where the acts are committed, your own country or no jurisdiction at all.

An example: Let's say Mario is a spanish businessman. He travels to Cuba for business reasons, relative to a non-US company he works for. His company happens to do some business with the US. On the excuse that his (foreign) company owns some assets in the US, they charge'im with some form of fraud, then they demand the Spanish government to hand poor Mario over.

edited 20th Jan '12 11:36:11 AM by SavageHeathen

By this logic we should charge US businesses for not paying their Chinese workers US minimum wage (which would at least be a bit noble).

The US doesn't have a one-way extradition treaty with anyone... Anyone who wants to get someone from the US is required to have an extradition treaty with the US. If they don't, citizen or not, tough luck(though if you're not a citizen you're looking more in terms of revoked visas and deportation than extradition).

The US tends to have same-term extradition treaties. Meaning whatever terms one country can get, the other will get as well. Though in both cases, there are required hearings in the respective countries to determine if extradition is warranted.

edited 20th Jan '12 11:45:12 AM by Swish

I'm not against extradition itself. If there's a legitimate reason then fine. But this... this doesn't seem like a legitimate reason, and the punishment he faces is completely disproportionate. This is just wrong.

That's one way of putting it. But think of it this way: if someone stands near the border between two countries and throws rocks at people on the other side, does the country they're throwing rocks at have the right to punish them?

What this guy's being accused of is that, while he never physically left his country, he was still directly taking actions in U.S. territory in violation of U.S. laws.

edited 20th Jan '12 12:21:00 PM by RavenWilder

Even if that can stand (and I don't believe it can, because this domain argument is ridiculous), how was the poor guy supposed to know a website could count as part of a country's territory? Does he really deserve five years for it? In a strange country?

Isn't five years the maximum sentence? You're acting like he's definitely going to get that.

There's a chance he'll get the maximum sentence, and even if he doesn't, we shouldn't have risked him getting that for something so stupid.

The BBC pointed out that the UK denied something like 8 of 107 extradition requests made by the US to the UK last year, whereas the US agreed to all of the 58 or so requests made by the UK to the US.

Dozens of cases a year, even though perhaps three make the news.

One legitimate case was the guy who hacked the Pentagon's website quite deeply due to paranoia about suppressed information about UFO's. That guy deserved extradition, it was a serious cybercrime against the Pentagon. What also annoyed me about that was the crux of his defence being "he has Aspergers, he didn't know any better", which (speaking as someone who has Aspergers) is bullshit of the highest order. Not sure what came of that case though.

In this case, yeah, the US are seriously pushing their juridictional boundaries, and the UK high court has already said that he's committed no crimes under our laws, so they won't be prosecuting him for anything. That's rather telling, as I'd assume that massive copyright fraud would, if a crime, be likely to be so under both jurisdictions.