Pirate Bay co-founder charged with hacking and fraud
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
I'm from Sweden and I'm very sad to say that I don't consider Sweden to fulfil all the requirements for rule of law and legal security.
Even if he is acquitted from the crimes in a trial he will have spent a few months arrested and we don't have a bail system here in Sweden.
Both European committee for the prevention of torture and Amnesty International frequently criticize Sweden for the conditions for arrestees ... Yepp, that's where Gotfried is being kept locked up...
And if anyone is a flight risk who would never be granted bail it is Gottfried, He has already fled a sentence once - that is not to say that being in a 'häkte' is fun or humane, depending on circumstances.
Finally:
>I'm from Sweden and I'm very sad to say that I don't consider Sweden to fulfil all the requirements for rule of law and legal security. [Citation Neeeded]
Take a look at our modern history. Confiscation of not yet published newspapers during world war II. The German troop transports, the extradition of Baltic citizens, the IB-matter, forced sterilization. We really have a history of throwing out all legal principles whenever public authorities want to.
In recent times, Thomas Quick, the extradition of two Egyptian citizen without any due process, REVA, perhaps you remember "#gategate" where LEO got acquitted, the "lilac envelopes" our minister of justice wanted to use spread shame to suspects, treatment of acquitted persons in the da Costa case.. I could go on for quite some time with this, there are a lot of examples to choose from.
Just the fact that we have politicians appointing jury members ("nämndemän") is a hint to where Swedish legal security stands. Jury members that in the majority of cases fails to answer basic legal questions correct. The entire chain of courts "förvaltningsrätt" is a very troublesome construction to say the least ...
I think it's often enough for a legal system that strives for perfection rather than one that is always perfect. I do not think the latter has ever existed.
TSA and DHS are true examples how the terrorist actually have won, we now fear them so much we have changed our ways and our open/free society. We, as in the western / developed world.
And no matter how much I try I can't understand how we won over the Soviet block back in the days still keeping an open society. Back then we pointed fingers at them and called them the bad guys for massive surveillance of citizens. And yes, terror was a integral part of the cold war, red army faction etc ...
What kind of "citation" would you expect? The Swedish government to tell you they're dirty?
A random google search revealed this site: http://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-law-index-map
A quick look suggests that the rule of law in Sweden is among the highest in the world. But if you got any sources on the contrary I would be happy to read them.
Those are just for general cases -- a median of government/police behavior. (Not to mention a lot of those are reported or based on data by government bodies themselves).
Doesn't say squat about specific people targeted by some agency (as examples, unwanted agitators, etc).
The "rule of law" is great in the US too in general, but you have people like J.E Hoover break all the rules in the book, or Senator McCarthy make his own rules, etc. Or you have the government maintain a whole prison, with torture, no due process, no trials, etc at all, outside the country (Guantanamo).
The treatment of law in general cases is not at all the same as the treatment of law in "targeted" cases.
For some cases prisoners are kept in isolation well over one year. This is a form of low-intensity torture and causes measurable harm to a person's brain and personality - PTSD being one of the more common residual damages done. And remember, people kept in "häkte" remand prison are suspects, still to be treated as innocent, and frequently exonerated by the courts. They still suffer the harm from the extended isolation.
Sweden in many ways have a good prison system but the extensive and common use of isolation by prosecutors is really bad and a disgrace.
The US system have far too severe penalties. Sentences of 10-100 years are now common. Conditions in prisons are horrible with rampant drug abuse, violence and even murders.
However, the Swedish prosecutors and courts are banana republic quality. Look at the Assange parody for an example. A Swedish prosecutor may invent almost anything as evidence, even a photoshopped screenshot - because ANYTHING can be submitted as evidence in a Swedish court. There is even a recent drug case where the Swedish police illegaly put GPS surveillance on a suspected drug trafficker. The court recognizes the police did this illegaly, but the GPS data is still allowed as evidence. This is called "fri bevisföring" in Swedish. The courts are made up by politically chosen representatives, not a jury, which further contributes to the banana republic sentencing.
So - justice is more blind in Sweden, but she is slapping you on the wrist, instead of decapitating you.
As it is in the US, too. There aren't exactly elections for Supreme Court Justices.
But when it comes to legal security it really is much harder choice but I think I would prefer to face the US justice system in all "normal" criminal cases.
If the word terrorism was anywhere near the case I'm not so sure any more.
Apropos of anything else, and without discounting the positives of the work they do, this is one of Amnesty's raison d'etre's - there is not a country on Earth that they do not criticize in this regard.
Are these allegations true? If so, I don't think this man deserves sympathies. The punishment may be too harsh in my opinion for these type of crimes, but they are crimes nonetheless.
He has been held for something like 7 months without charges under a law that is supposed to allow holding someone while evidence is gathered. The person is not supposed to be held for more than 7 days, 14 at the most. So they've had to keep filing and getting a judge to approve extensions to keep holding him without charging him.
Now, one wonders if they needed 7+ months to gather evidence, if they ever had any evidence to begin with, to justify arresting him.
Who knows, but this is not off to a good start.
The likely answer:
Charges come, they are dropped or dismissed (they were possibly fabricated to begin with), since he is in the country now he is dealt with for Pirate Bay related stuff, credited with time served and is either released or imprisoned for a few more months, and then everyone forgets about it.
It is quite different from other countries, I know, but law is not handled the same way all over the world.
Of course it benefits the prosecutor to keep someone locked up while you work on the prosecution evidence.
But it severly restricts the imprisoned person from working on their defense. Thus, it is bad for the legal principle of "equality at arms".
Is this true? It sounds like no difference from totalitarian system such as Chinese government to legally detain a person for while gathering evidence.
A quick read-through seems to suggest that they have quite solid support for it. However, I haven't seen the investigation protocol (FUP) so I cannot say if the actual evidence is any good.
Constituting?
The prosecutor claims that they have chats logs that show Gottfrid discussing the hacking, logs that connects IP address to those owned/bought by Gottfrid, data on a mobile phone owned by him, and computer + old hard drive.
Sadly, none of that is actually showed in the PDF. Only referenced.
I guess we will see.
I'm not saying it couldn't be legit, but I think we can all agree that TPB is well into the realm of "find me something that'll stick on these guys"
And claiming he was going to sell them. Why leave out the whole truth?
I don't doubt he might have though, as he's a fucking idiot. But if you're actually going to do that you're not exactly issuing press releases about the loss.
Kind of an odd thing to suggest as a heinous crime anyway, since 50x that much data is being passed around about all those people on that list between the fortune 500 under thge guise of privacy policies and partners.
>> He was also charged with hacking into the computer servers of Logica, a Swedish company that handles tax documents.
"Oh noes! Don't hack our taxes!!"
Logica is a big, bloated IT services company that makes (shitty) custom software for big customers, typically government agencies. They're in Finland too, but originally from England.
Source? Do you have ANY evidence of this whatsoever?
>> "Oh noes! Don't hack our taxes!!" Logica is a big, bloated IT services company that makes (shitty) custom software
Are you suggesting, because Logica is big, bloated, makes "shitty" software, or makes tax software, they should be open game to hackers? You are ridiculous.
Sure, let me just dig up that link where the Swedish government says the whole case is a sham!
> Are you suggesting, because Logica is big, bloated, makes "shitty" software, or makes tax software, they should be open game to hackers? You are ridiculous.
I implied that tax records were mentioned because someone seeing everyone's tax records is bound to make a lot of people feel uncomfortable. In other words, mentioning tax records in that context was done to shape the public opinion on the case.
In Sweden's case, it's just not your average third-world style corruption like "hand me a bag of money and let's see about that building permit" - it's more about various "constituents" trading in favours/influence/power/positions/money.
Of course, the same kind of corruption applies to the US too. For example, campaign contributions are bribes already.
The sentence itself reveals the fallacy: "leads to corruption", suggesting at some point it is not corrupt -- contradicted by "every government is corrupt". Q.E.D.
Here's what I said:
>> Every government is corrupt, because the very arrangement of government itself leads to corruption.
In this statement, "every government is corrupt" is a description of the state of affairs that the arrangement of government leads to. This does not contradict the idea of a government possibly not being corrupt at its inception - the point was that a government is a flawed institution right from the start.
Bear in mind, a government is a group of people that:
- Wields power over millions of people, and decides everything for them, even though their one-size-fits-all -solutions are practically guaranteed to not fit all.
- Forcefully extracts money from millions of people, and then uses it as they see fit.
- Is not responsible for their actions to anyone. In other words, no matter what they do, they won't suffer any negative consequences. Sure, someone may not get re-elected, but that doesn't really matter, and they'll still enjoy a fat pension (of other people's money) and so on.
It just doesn't make sense. What does make sense, however, is the US entertainment industry (and governments) wanting to make an example out of them: Here's what happens to naughty little copyright-infringers/freedom-fighters.
Or that tons of people have been found guilty (and never could proved their innocence), with fabricated data by some corrupt government agency.
Still a crime of course, and still wrong.
What does it mean to illegally transfer money? Is this a euphemism for stealing?
* Transferring money between two bank accounts neither of which one owns. For example, I could transfer money from niggler's bank account to Obama's bank account, without personally benefiting from it, "for the lulz," or for trying to see if I actually have access to do that after having hacked into a bank's system.
* Transferring my own money from my bank account to another bank without having permission to do so. Maybe the money has been frozen in some way. In that case, it is my own money, so it isn't stealing.
Not sure what happened here, but the term is broader.
Stealing does tend to be associated with physical theft?
[1]: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034733/pirate-bay-cofounder-...
He has knowledge and experience with z/OS.
And in the general case, I totally agree with lawnchair_larry. Also, if there is a big enough incentive to find security flaws they will be found, even in rather obscure systems.
Though that doesn't make him guilty until proven otherwise.