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Comment by damncabbage | Hacker News Reader

From pathy, who appears to be hellbanned:

Just a reminder: This case is not related to his Pirate Bay involvement. He is accused of hacking Logica, who handles data for the Swedish Tax Authority.

How much empathy would you have if someone, not involved in TPB, 'stole' information about you from your local tax authority? Especially Americans who seem to be paranoid about their tax stuff (For example Romney). At least in Sweden your tax data is pretty much public - when requested from the Tax Authority.

As a side note: This is also true for privately held companies in Sweden, all annual reports are pretty much public. You can for example view Mojang's (Minecraft) figures here: http://www.allabolag.se/5568192388/Mojang_AB

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From what I can tell, he's never been officially accused of this crime (yet), but it seems to have been enough to deport him, and hold him for five months without charges, with him being held for at least a month in solitary.

That's ridiculous.

(Assuming I am actually not hellbanned - if I am, interesting...)

It is how the Swedish justice system works, you don't get officially accused, in the American sense, until you actually go to court. He is being held during investigation due to him being at risk of fleeing and such.

For more information on what he is going through see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4ktning#H.C3.A4ktning_.28...

I seem to recall him being held on probable cause but I am not sure.

Edit: hm, I think accidental double post caused the my original comment to be flagged as dead?

Yes, I am aware of this, but read your link:

A person may be held in custody for a period of normally not more than 14 days (seven days if only the degree of suspicion "reasonable suspicion" exists)

In order to hold him for 5 months, they would need to file an extension every two weeks... and at 5 months, you're obviously just abusing the law.

If they didn't have enough evidence 5 months ago, surely they don't seem to have it now.

AFAIK it has to be extended every 14 days by a judge.

But yes, I agree with you on that, it can easily be abused and Sweden has been criticized for that in the past. That said, he has fled the country before and he could tamper with evidence if he had access to a computer (probably) so in that sense it makes sense to keep him confined - and he still has to serve his 1 year sentence from the TPB trial. The time he has spent now will be deducted from his TPB sentence so he will probably only have to serve very little additional time for that.

That said: It does not justify prolonged solitary confinement. He did get some access to others so it wasn't true solitary confinement but probably almost as taxing.

I wonder if, by pure coincidence of course, he'll end up being released right about the end of his TPB-related sentence, and this "hacking" charge will simply be dropped.

An expensive international manhunt for copyright infringers looks a bit overzealous in the press, but for a "dangerous computer hacker targeting tax records"? Much more politically acceptable.

It is not probable. He would not remain in jail this long unless a judge determined that the "probable cause" that the prosecutor brings forward every 2 weeks is strong enough for him to remain jailed. Despite what some people seem to believe, this is not part of a plot to keep him behind bars "just because".

How does it work in the US? The police catches you, you enter trial - how múch time is allowed to pass in between?

Yeah, but he is now serving his 1 year prison sentence.

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