6 ms·

Was Assange in the US at the time of the hacking? What has bothered me most is that he is a non-citizen, a journalist, being dragged across the world to face US

Was Assange in the US at the time of the hacking? What has bothered me most is that he is a non-citizen, a journalist, being dragged across the world to face US Law

wavefunction 7y ago
Your issue lies with international extradition treaties it seems.
- krferriter 7y ago
  Extradition is usually done when someone commits a crime in one country, then flees to another country, and the first country requests that the second country send them back to the first country so they can be tried, right? Assange didn't break any laws inside the US. Can the US request extradition of anyone who breaks US law, even if they didn't break it while in the US? That seems pretty dangerous, and if I were a legislator in another country I would be very wary of ceding international prosecution power to the US. If Alice in Canada, a Canadian citizen and permanent resident, tells Bob in the US that thepiratebay lets them download copyrighted content, can the US request extradition of Alice from Canada and charge them with US crimes?
  - swanny160 7y ago
    That is exactly my concern. Basically everyone in the world can be subject to US Law, set by a government they didn't vote for.
    - drenvuk 7y ago
      Extradition situations are typically run like so: 0. Country A has an extradition treaty with country B. 1. Break a law in Country A that is also a law in Country B but the effects of breaking that law happen in country B. 2. Courts in Country A decide whether the extradition treaty applies. 3. If it's a citizen that breaks the law there are a myriad of ways for Country A to say no. If It's a non-citizen then they get exported with a quickness, usually. Countries like Iceland usually say no to the US, see: Bobby Fischer. Other countries vary quite a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but most countries only extradite their own citizens (sometimes or never) in the case where laws are broken in both countries and there's a ton of political pressure. It's not completely willy nilly though it's worse than I'd like.
    - RHSeeger 7y ago
      This seems to be true of many countries, though.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Of course they can. The US has happily wielded international unaccountable power like this for years. See e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case
  - cf498 7y ago
    Depends on the country. Germany for example doesnt allow the extradition of German citizens outside the EU unless its to the international court of justice. Before the European arrest warrant it was completely unconstitutional to extradite any German citizen to anywhere. You instead get put on trial in Germany.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  It's very unlikely that Assange will be extradited given this set of charges.
onion2k 7y ago
In the age of the Internet the physical location of where a crime took place is complicated. If I sit in front of a computer in a foreign country, preferably one that doesn't have extradition treaties with the US, and steal money/secrets/dank memes from American citizens I don't think many people would suggest I should be allowed to get away with that based on where I happen to be at the time. It may or may not be the case for Assange depending on the facts of the case and on your own opinion, but treating the location of the crime as "where the server is" does seem like a sensible way to deal with the problem.
- switch007 7y ago
  Following your hypothetical, which countries don't have laws for theft? Yes, the person should be allowed to get away with it, because the sovereignty of that country is important. Should every country apply their laws globally, or just the US...?
  - laumars 7y ago
    I'm not a fan of countries who apply their laws globally but I don't think that is the case with the GP's hypothetical because the server is hosted in that country - thus that is literally where the crime was committed. You may not be physically present in the same location as the server in the GP's hypothetical but the crime you committed was within the territory of that particular country. To me, the equivalent is flying over to the country, committing a crime, then flying back before the crime had been detected and using that as a defence for why you shouldn't be extradited. That's just my opinion though. I do agree that the age of the internet has made the issue of legal jurisdictions a murky one.
    - avar 7y ago
      The Internet hasn't made any of this murky. It's the exact same thing you can do with the postal system, for which we have hundreds of years of precedence. If a US citizen in the 1960s sent a leaflet containing some thought crime to the Soviet Union should the US be under any obligation to extradite that person to the USSR? By communicating with a computer in another country you're just sending information across the high-tech equivalent of the postal system. It's up to the receiving country how strict they're going to be in auditing information crossing their borders.
pjc50 7y ago
Sadly, not the first time this has happened - Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest for PDF cracking was the incident which motivated me into digital civil rights campaigning, and more recently Gary McKinnon's long fight against extradition for ""hacking the Pentagon"". Or the FBI raid on Megaupload in New Zealand.

Was Assange in the US at the time of the hacking? What has bothered me most is that he is a non-citizen, a journalist, being dragged across the world to face US Law

wavefunction 7y ago

Your issue lies with international extradition treaties it seems.

krferriter 7y ago
Extradition is usually done when someone commits a crime in one country, then flees to another country, and the first country requests that the second country send them back to the first country so they can be tried, right? Assange didn't break any laws inside the US. Can the US request extradition of anyone who breaks US law, even if they didn't break it while in the US? That seems pretty dangerous, and if I were a legislator in another country I would be very wary of ceding international prosecution power to the US. If Alice in Canada, a Canadian citizen and permanent resident, tells Bob in the US that thepiratebay lets them download copyrighted content, can the US request extradition of Alice from Canada and charge them with US crimes?
- swanny160 7y ago
  That is exactly my concern. Basically everyone in the world can be subject to US Law, set by a government they didn't vote for.
  - drenvuk 7y ago
    Extradition situations are typically run like so: 0. Country A has an extradition treaty with country B. 1. Break a law in Country A that is also a law in Country B but the effects of breaking that law happen in country B. 2. Courts in Country A decide whether the extradition treaty applies. 3. If it's a citizen that breaks the law there are a myriad of ways for Country A to say no. If It's a non-citizen then they get exported with a quickness, usually. Countries like Iceland usually say no to the US, see: Bobby Fischer. Other countries vary quite a lot. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but most countries only extradite their own citizens (sometimes or never) in the case where laws are broken in both countries and there's a ton of political pressure. It's not completely willy nilly though it's worse than I'd like.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    This seems to be true of many countries, though.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- pjc50 7y ago
  Of course they can. The US has happily wielded international unaccountable power like this for years. See e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case
- cf498 7y ago
  Depends on the country. Germany for example doesnt allow the extradition of German citizens outside the EU unless its to the international court of justice. Before the European arrest warrant it was completely unconstitutional to extradite any German citizen to anywhere. You instead get put on trial in Germany.
jessaustin 7y ago
It's very unlikely that Assange will be extradited given this set of charges.

onion2k 7y ago

In the age of the Internet the physical location of where a crime took place is complicated. If I sit in front of a computer in a foreign country, preferably one that doesn't have extradition treaties with the US, and steal money/secrets/dank memes from American citizens I don't think many people would suggest I should be allowed to get away with that based on where I happen to be at the time. It may or may not be the case for Assange depending on the facts of the case and on your own opinion, but treating the location of the crime as "where the server is" does seem like a sensible way to deal with the problem.

switch007 7y ago
Following your hypothetical, which countries don't have laws for theft? Yes, the person should be allowed to get away with it, because the sovereignty of that country is important. Should every country apply their laws globally, or just the US...?
- laumars 7y ago
  I'm not a fan of countries who apply their laws globally but I don't think that is the case with the GP's hypothetical because the server is hosted in that country - thus that is literally where the crime was committed. You may not be physically present in the same location as the server in the GP's hypothetical but the crime you committed was within the territory of that particular country. To me, the equivalent is flying over to the country, committing a crime, then flying back before the crime had been detected and using that as a defence for why you shouldn't be extradited. That's just my opinion though. I do agree that the age of the internet has made the issue of legal jurisdictions a murky one.
  - avar 7y ago
    The Internet hasn't made any of this murky. It's the exact same thing you can do with the postal system, for which we have hundreds of years of precedence. If a US citizen in the 1960s sent a leaflet containing some thought crime to the Soviet Union should the US be under any obligation to extradite that person to the USSR? By communicating with a computer in another country you're just sending information across the high-tech equivalent of the postal system. It's up to the receiving country how strict they're going to be in auditing information crossing their borders.

pjc50 7y ago

Sadly, not the first time this has happened - Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest for PDF cracking was the incident which motivated me into digital civil rights campaigning, and more recently Gary McKinnon's long fight against extradition for ""hacking the Pentagon"". Or the FBI raid on Megaupload in New Zealand.