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Comment by PeterisP | Hacker News Reader

It's widely covered here in Latvian local media - the general message is that there are grounds to charge (and likely convict) him with a bunch of crimes locally; but -

1) local prosecution claims that there aren't any grounds to prosecute on ~half of claims that USA wants to charge;

2) defense lawyers claim and popular sentiment (including politicians) believe that USA doesn't have a just/fair court system for computer related crimes;

3) there is a strong position for local jurisdiction in crimes in "cyberspace" - if some action is legal locally, then people shouldn't care if it's illegal in USA; if some crime carries max penalty of 5 years, as is here for computer fraud; then extraditing him for charges of the USA requested 67 years - essentially life sentence - is unacceptable.

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It's becoming increasingly scarier that US can start extraditing people from other countries because they somehow did some wrong to them because what he did was "on the Internet", and US happens to have a large portion of the traffic - especially when some of these crimes aren't even crimes locally, and what he did was legal in his own country.

Imagine if China all of the sudden starts wanting countries to extradite people that talk badly about China or help their citizens avoid censorship or whatever, and imagine they actually had the political power to do that, like US has right now.

If they had robed a bank physically would they still not be extradited?

And given their neighbors experience with cyber war I woudl have expected Latvia to take this a lot more seriously

The whole point is that if they physically robbed a local branch of an USA bank, stealing money of USA citizens and say, even killing USA citizens in the process, then they wouldn't be extradited nor prosecuted for USA laws. And, by the way, even armed robbery w. killings (IMHO far worse than any amount of theft/fraud) would still carry less penalty than the 67 years currently requested, barring serious aggravating circumstances.

It's been long established in international law that the crime occurs where the harm occurs. That's why the Lockerbie bombers were tried in Scotland.

The Lockerbie bombers were tried in the Netherlands by a Scottish Court under Scots Law, with a weird jurisdictional set up, as part of a negotiated compromise to resolve US/UK demands that they be tried in the US or UK, and Libyan demands that they not be tried in the US or UK, and the location and other arrangements for the trial do not represent any "long-established principle in international law", unless you include the principle that international law is mostly just whatever the involved sovereign states agree to at the time on the specific issue in question.

>international law is mostly just whatever the involved sovereign states agree to at the time on the specific issue in question.

Thank you. I've long made the argument that international law is arbitrary and capricious without much buy-in from those around me. It's good to hear you say it.

I'm not saying that there aren't some fairly well-settled substantive principles of international law that aren't just arbitrary and capricious, I'm just saying that you don't find any of them illustrated by the decision of where to locate the Lockerbie bombing trial.

(OTOH, even where there are well-established principles of international law, the absence of consistent enforcement and application leads to them not being inviolate.)

Ugh, in that case NSA staff and Mr. Obama, should come to stand before European court and after that to all other countries that wish so (Russia, China, etc.)

Robbing a bank physically is different than online fraud.

For one, you're not holding people at gunpoint with the threat of violence.

yes its worse instead of one large institution that can support the loss you are robbing a million members of Joe public who probably wont be able to suffer that loss as easily.

Bonnie an Clyde became folk heroes for striking it to the man they wound not have if they had robbed lots of poor farmers.

Just create a law that forces bank to refund defrauded customers. Now you're robbing one large institution that can support the loss once again, problem solved.

FYI, such laws already exist - in EU, most of the consumer losses in such frauds have to be compensated by the bank. It's not always pleasant but it motivates banks to take effective measurements against identity theft. Many of USA identity theft horror stories could never happen here; as soon as their own cash is threatened, banks can be much mire diligent.

yeah given the banks track record in dragging their feet over phantom atm withdrawals thats going to work real well.

The banks will probably try to blame the victim to avoid paying out you must have shared/written down your banking password and/or start selling cyber insurance which will become the next PPI scam in a few years.

If they robbed a bank physically they'd have to have visited the U.S. and it's clear what country they committed a crime in. It is not as clear-cut when they have never been to the U.S.

it's difficult to take US seriously when it has 67 year sentences for stuff like this. This is ridicolous. You did it to yourself. It's difficult to take you seriously. This and a global war with a billion Muslims that goes for a decade because some idiots blew up couple of buildings in New York. Are you for real? Wake up!

Correspondingly, it's difficult to take people seriously who honestly believe the U.S. is at war with Islam, and not terrorism. Has the U.S. started dropping cluster bombs in Indonesia and I just missed it somehow?

No, but it has bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, willing to bomb Iran. Heeelllloooooo!

First off, you're claiming that there is 1 common reason underlying all those 3, which you've not proven.

But even if we assume that, is your claim that the only thing common amongst those three is the majority religion adhered to in each nation?

yep. This and Mr. Bush claiming that God told him to attack Iraq: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

I think Bush is when we all started taking the US not really so seriously. Or things like the moment we notice the US population still supports him at large even when he says he has to attack Iraq because God told him so. You're just so immature as people and a nation.

> Or things like the moment we notice the US population still supports him at large even when he says he has to attack Iraq because God told him so.

Uh, dude, Dubya was so reviled even within the U.S. that he wasn't even invited to Republican political events oriented around electing his own successor. And you may have missed it in the news by he had more "justifications" that he claimed for attacking than merely a God-given mission.

But it's funny you should mention immaturity, given that few would consider pinning a person's thoughts (even the POTUS) as reasonably representative of 320 million people's thoughts.

they vote the way they did, didn't they? Actually, twice!

The first time they voted for Gore. Perhaps you are too young to remember though.

The second time there were rather virulent protests, celebrity protest (including an Eminem music video) right up to one of the narrowest election victories in some time. I remember it vividly because it was my first election I could vote in. :P

My point is that in most if not all EU countries Bush wouldn't even be a serious contender. However, I do feel for you, and others who are opposed to the certain development that happened since 9/11 but have no say in the decision making process. On the other hand maybe the thing is that you are not really trying. It's not like in 1960s with students on the streets. It's like people are 'outraged' and then all this rage causes them to sit down and do nothing. We (I'm an American too) need a serious revolution in our fatherland and not debating the Constitution haters. If you hate and want to destroy the US Constitution there is no place for you in the US. All these guys go there on the streets (when they actually do - OWS - too socialist for me) and then they let the police do whatever. It's not like 1960s. That's exactly why the Government feels so bold to do stuff like PRISM. Because it can't hear or see serious voices of discontent.

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