British Student Loses Extradition Battle Over Copyright Violation

@Raven Wilder: Perhaps, but he never personally came under the authority of the US government. The US might be justified to seize the guy's US assets (the domain) and freeze any assets he may have in the US. But actually prosecuting the guy? It's asinine, a blatant overreach.

The US claims jurisdiction of actions committed by foreign nationals on foreign soil. Short of espionage or international terrorism (national security issues), it's a clear power grab: They effectively claim jurisdiction over all people in all countries.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Acting as though using a domain name registered to an American company is the same as being in America is ridiculous. What it boils down to is an attempt to push further corporate control onto the internet. Afilias, who ultimatley operate .org, is located in Dublin so would it follow that users of TV Tropes are subject to the laws of the Republic of Ireland?

Best get learning, folks.

edited 20th Jan '12 1:23:49 PM by TheBatPencil

And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)

Not having extradition lets people like that one kid-diddling fuckwit who's hiding out in France (by the way, fuck the French Government for that shit) get away with things, so not only no, but fuck no, to getting rid of it.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

Honest question: are the merits of extradition treaties generally within the remit of this thread, or should that be spun off and this one left to be about this specific case? The former would appear to deserve a thread given the multiple opinions expressed here.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

I thought the point of having extradition is that if someone from your country runs away to somewhere else, he or she would be sent back to that country.

United States seems to be overextending its media authority on many fronts lately.

Now using Trivialis handle.

It might, but I don't know if it's a good idea, considering that the spinoff piracy thread is still "unopened". I don't really know what's going on with this board.

I'm going to say it's valid.

"You fail to grasp the basic principles of mad science. Common sense would be cheating." - Narbonic

The concept of extradition is perfectly reasonable, sometimes it's needed. This just seems like misuse of the whole idea.

We only have the right to extradite this kid if we also give China the right to extradite Americans who run half the Internet.

I didn't want to put it that way to avoid a flamewar, but Pyrkete hit the nail on the head:

It's like China demanding that the UK extradites a Brit who violated Chinese censorship laws, transmitting illegal information to the Chinese public: Both cases are non-citizens being charged of violations (in Britain, not China/US) of Chinese/US law... A law to which the kid was never under to begin with. It's a more sinister example, but it helps illustrate how Orwellian this case actually is.

It's insane. He could be charged with violating the British copyright law... If the Brits want to. If Her Majesty's Government doesn't want to (and they've given no sign of wanting to do it), they can choose not to prosecute: Crown Prosecutor's call, actually. These attempts at worldwide jurisdiction are quite scary.

@Flyboy: France doesn't extradite its own citizens precisely to avoid this kinda sheanigans. All in all, France's approach protects its people better.

edited 20th Jan '12 5:53:42 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Irrelevant. The... what is his name, Polaski?... case will never be lived down by France, as far as I'm concerned.

Not that it's just the French being idiots in that situation, judging by much support that rotten son of a bitch gets in the US, too.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

Roman Polanski is who you're thinking of.

Interestingly given China came up, we've just extradited one of our citizens back from there for child sex offences. Britain doesn't actually have an extradition treaty with the Chinese, but managed to come to a diplomatic agreement to ensure he was jailed after he skipped the country on a false passport. The downside was that he couldn't be charged ith specific offences, and thus only got 7 and a half years. It's rather hard to argue against this being a worthy exception to the rules (and I'd strongly advise against doing so in this thread; be wary of how you phrase any discomfort around what happened with this!) Link: [1]

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

No objections on that case at all!

China extradited a foreigner back to his home country, where he faces charges for breaking the foreign country's law while he was a resident.

The mere lack of a treaty doesn't make that particular extradition fishy in the least: It's a textbook legit one! There's dual criminality, it's a fugitive who actually committed a crime when inside the requesting country's jursidiction, it's a serious crime... Pretty much the exact opposite case to the OP.

edited 20th Jan '12 6:27:56 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Now take the same case and make the guy a Chinese native (who still committed the crime in Britain).

Is it still acceptable?

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

It's a tough question to answer. Ideally, yes: We should be able to extradite child rapists so that they can face prosecution (or a firing squad, for that matter). However, extraditing your own citizens opens a whole can of worms.

For starters, unless you can guarantee that the defendant's Constitutional Rights aren't going to be violated by the Requesting Power. The laws under which they've been charged have to be scrutinized under that standard. Whether he's going to receive a fair trial is another consideration. Then there's the question of dual criminality... And the question of determining whether the Requesting Power had jurisdiction over the defendant (necessary to stick charges against him).

Unless all those safeguards are in place, a foreign country can just assert itself against your citizens and deprive'em of their rights without ever having gained jurisdiction in the first place (like in the OP). There should be a way to extradite mass murderers, rapists, war criminals and child rapists without enabling foreign powers to just grab citizens.

While not extraditing a fugitive paedophile is wrong, extraditing a citizen in a bullshit case (like the Brit kid with the piracy site) is as bad or worse. Some countries like France play it safe and don't extradite their citizens ever. I can see where France's coming from, to a point.

edited 20th Jan '12 7:06:30 PM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Insofar as I care, France has absolutely zero credibility in that case.

And, I suppose I shouldn't bother with such a question, since with this kind of thing the answer usually boils down to "in theory, yes, we can do it, but in reality the system of how many rights people have makes it essentially impossible to punish anybody for anything ever, and no we don't care about that either," so, whatever, I guess...

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

Well, when you're served with an extradition request against a citizen, it creates a conundrum: You've got essentially three options.

• You hand the guy over and hope for the best (like the Brits): It's open to abuse. Foreign powers can enforce their laws on your nationals on your soil, like America just did with the poor Brit kid. It circumvents a citizen's Constitutional rights, which is probably illegal in civilized countries. Likely to result in domestic outcry.
• You don't hand any citizen over at all, ever, and occassionally shield some hardened criminal from well-deserved prosecution. Likely to result in international outcry.
• You do it in a case-by-case basis, ensuring that your citizen's Constitutional rights are preserved, that the proceedings will qualify as a fair trial, that there was dual criminality and that the accused came under the jurisdiction of the Requesting Power. Likely to be a bureaucratic nightmare: With a few exceptions, whenever you do extradite, there'll be domestic outcry. Whenever you don't, you'll face international pressure.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Extradition itself isn't the issue really anyway, it's the US claiming that just using a .net or .com domain is enough grounds to demand extradition that's bullshit.

to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee

It does seem like the American Government is trying to lay claim to the Internet — Imperialism much?

By the way, Britain cannot extradite people from the US as easily as the US can from the UK, and this treaty is more of a Political Issue here than over there too, it appears...

Keep Rolling On

Why is it harder for the UK?

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Basically, the Extradition Act 2003 means that the US does not need Prima Facie evidence in order to extradite someone from the UK, but the UK still needs evidence to satisfy the "probable cause" element of the US Constitution.

Basically, the US only needs "information", not evidence to extradite a person, whereas the UK needs evidence*

in order to extradite a person.

It's unequal.

edited 21st Jan '12 4:45:32 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Thats absurd. Its funny how Cameron is focussed on getting Britain powers back from the EU, but we're still bound by an unequal treaty with the US (and it isn't even mentioned.)

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

It's even worse: Potentially any Brit can be extradited to America for any violation of American law committed by him in Britain. It's outright vassalage.

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

Yeah that I don't agree with - if it were universally applicable, almost every woman in the Western World would be completely fucked by the standards of, say, Saudi law.

Foreign nationals on their own territory abide by their laws. It's very cagey to use the internet as an extension of US soil for those purposes.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

This is why I want the Government to sever ties with the US and pull back our forces from their wars.

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