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U.S. arrests former Green Beret, son, in connection with Ghosn escape from Japan
- joncrane 6y agoOof, I clicked and remembered WSJ is paywalled...what's the trick to get around that again?
- textech 6y agohttps://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome/blob/ma...
- engineer_22 6y agowait around for someone to post an archive.org link
- codazoda 6y agoI was wondering why WSJ was down, then I remembered I sent it to localhost in frustration last time I clicked a link there. :P
- DennisP 6y agoOne way is to just plug the URL into archive.is. Here's the article: http://archive.is/z90TL http://archive.is/z90TL
- ProAm 6y agoIt's responsible to pay for good journalism.
- ekianjo 6y agoHow can you judge it's good if you can't read more than 5 lines?
- josefresco 6y agoTrust is determined by evaluating the institution. You don't get to ask for a partial refund of your newspaper subscription because you disliked one article.
- freeopinion 6y agoDo you make the same argument for movies? books? cars?
- godelzilla 6y agoIt's the WSJ though.
- pinkfoot 6y agoSure, they just don't want my currency.
- Lendal 6y agoYes, but is it responsible to pay for _all_ good journalism? You'd go bankrupt.
- dang 6y agoPaywall complaints, which this is a variant of, are off topic here. They're always the same, which means they just add noise. HN is a site for diffs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20paywalls&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- ProAm 6y agoThat is very fair, but why allow piracy with paywall workarounds? Are those considered off topic or illegal? It is a gray area, but people asking for a paywall workaround also seems OT in comments? I only ask because I think its important to the world to have good journalism because it helps to keep the other side of the fence (business and politics) accountable. And I believe that bypassing paywalls hurts that balance of powers.
- dang 6y agoBecause HN would be much worse off without NYT, Economist, WSJ, and so on. These publications are well aware of their paywall design and what can or can't be done to work around them. If they wanted hardwalls they would have them. Some publications do, and those are off limits here (edit: unless they're willing to unlock the article for HN readers, which The Information, for example, does occasionally). The situation is of course a mess, but until the publication business sorts itself out the way the music business eventually did, this is what we're left with. It sucks, but I don't know of any alternative that wouldn't suck worse. The difference between comments asking for paywall workarounds and comments complaining about paywalls is that the former gives people new things to read (albeit via a layer of indirection) while the latter just repeats something we've all read ad nauseum. It isn't a question of agreeing or disagreeing, but of avoiding repetition. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20repetition&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- chkaloon 6y agoThey have cheap trial periods that you can actually stop and start repeatedly. Of course, if you're a regular reader you should pay for it, but then they should also prevent re-using the trial period over and over. So maybe they don't care.
- RHSeeger 6y agoIt could be that they don't want to make it _too_ difficult for the people that are trying to do the right thing. Like companies that put simple copy protection on their games, but nothing complicated that hurts the end user (like always online junk). Doing just enough to keep the honest people honest is generally considered to be a reasonable compromise.
- hourislate 6y agoBypass Paywalls https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox
- csours 6y agoFrom the article: "In a criminal complaint, federal prosecutors said they were acting on a request from Japanese authorities to extradite Michael L. Taylor and his son, Peter M. Taylor, for their alleged roles in helping Mr. Ghosn escape from Japan." It appears they were not arrested for any US crimes.
- jumelles 6y agoSomething has to be a crime in both Japan and the US for one to be extradited for that crime.
- csours 6y agoCan you give me better phrasing for what I meant? They were not arrested for crimes committed on US soil. As far as I can guess, no US law enforcement would have arrested them for the crimes they committed without the request from Japan (though I may be very wrong about this).
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> U.S. law enforcement learned Peter Taylor had booked a flight from Boston to Beirut departing Wednesday with a layover in London and he was arrested by U.S. marshals as was Michael Taylor [1] Why would someone who just helped a fugitive evade the laws of a country the U.S. has an extradition treaty with feel comfortable remaining in Boston? [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn/us-arrests-two-men-wanted-by-japan-over-former-nissan-boss-carlos-ghosns-escape-idUSKBN22W1XD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn/us-arrests-t...
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoThey obviously didn't? They were trying to fly from Boston to Beirut, Lebanon, where they would have been safe.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> They were trying to fly from Boston Which means they were, months after the incident, in Boston. That strikes me as remarkably stupid, or hubristic, or both.
- tehwebguy 6y agoYeah but the warrant for them has been out since Jan 30 or earlier. Weird!
- jonwachob91 6y agoA Japanese Warrant has been out since Jan. A US Warrant wasn't requested until May 6.
- bogomipz 6y agoBoth men are very well-connected and part of the security-industrial complex. Michael lived in Boston where he had a company named American International Security Corporation that was well known for this sort of thing and they contracted with the CIA, DEA, foreign governments etc. To give an indication: >"Another company that Furlong sub-contracted was Boston-based American International Security Corporation (AISC) run by Mike Taylor, a former Green Beret turned private investigator. A 1995 lawsuit by Massachusetts State Trooper Robert Monahan accused Taylor of helping drug traffickers by providing phony Greek passports, and even arranging a jailbreak in Florida. AISC also employed Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, a former senior CIA official who was indicted in 1991 for his role in the Iran-Contra affair. In 1992, just before leaving office, President George H.W. Bush pardoned Clarridge."[1] See also: https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=57190507&itype=cmsid https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=57190507&itype=cms... and https://fortune.com/2020/01/06/green-beret-nissan-carlos-ghosn-japan-escape/ https://fortune.com/2020/01/06/green-beret-nissan-carlos-gho... [1] https://corpwatch.org/article/afghanistan-spy-contract-goes-sour-pentagon https://corpwatch.org/article/afghanistan-spy-contract-goes-...
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoInteresting. Japan is famously reluctant to extradite its own citizens, but they did send two to the US last year, so I wonder if somebody pulled strings to get the favor repaid. Although these are only low-level chumps, not Ghosn himself. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7d47070e-c949-4ddd-b0e4-546a569b373f https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=7d47070e-c949...
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> these are only low-level chumps The operation sounds like it would have been unsuccessful without their help. Given they were arrested boarding a commercial flight in Boston, it seems they felt above reproach. This arrest makes it less likely (though not impossible) such expertise will be able to be procured for such purposes in the future.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pm90 6y ago> This arrest makes it less likely (though not impossible) such expertise will be able to be procured for such purposes in the future. Eh, it would probably lead to them charging more for such things. How often have such people been arrested? What penalties will them ultimately face? (arrest is one thing, being found guilty and sentenced is another). The people who worry about wealth inequality do so for this reason. It creates a market for underground services that cost a lot but subvert due process in many ways... the same due process that would get most citizenry in a lot of trouble. It corrupts the system completely.
- brandall10 6y agoRight, at a certain price folks can coast out the rest of their lives in luxury... in places that don't have pesky things like extradition treaties to worry about. In this particular case these folks perhaps a bit too brazen, as extradition to Japan seems likely and they will certainly be imprisoned there.
- jcampbell1 6y agoIt will be interesting to follow if they have enough money to fight the extradition in court. The international press loves to make Japanese criminal courts sound like a 12th century madhouse at every opportunity.
- colejohnson66 6y agoI heard the reason for the high conviction rate is because they only pursue cases that they think they have a 100% of winning. <rant> Which I think is a really messed up thing. The police exist to serve the public, not to “win” cases. The fact that the public thinks “losing” a case is a bad thing is crazy. While you could argue that “losing” cases means they need to be replaced with someone who’ll get better evidence, this always leads to putting someone who’ll be “tough on crime” as the DA. And those DAs end up putting a lot of innocent people in prison. </rant>
- catalogia 6y agoAlmost as bad as prosecutors winning cases against innocent people is prosecutors losing cases against innocent people. Losing cases against innocent people is a bad thing insofar as the process itself is punishment. If prosecutors avoid cases they think they might lose, they're doubtlessly avoiding the scenario where they lose cases against innocent people, not just the scenario where they lose cases against guilty people. The question of which should be prioritized doesn't seem so clear cut to me. Surely there's a balance to strike, but where?
- pnw_hazor 6y agoNot sure about Japan, but the tendency of US prosecutors to dismiss/drop cases they think they might lose is a critical part of the US justice system. The US prosecutor has a dual role that includes protecting people from unwarranted prosecution as well as prosecuting people charged by police . Though [too] often, they confuse their important duty to protect people from unwarranted prosecution with their personal interest in promoting their career. edit: toned it down a bit - added [too]
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- DevX101 6y agoThe whole escape was likely coordinated by Ghosn's wife who it seems passed the Jeff Bezos test. Commenting on what he looked for in a wife, Bezos once said in an interview "The number one criterion was that I wanted a woman who could get me out of a Third World prison"
- afwaller 6y agoJapan is a first world country.
- elliekelly 6y agoAll the more impressive!
- speg 6y agoIf they’re willing to get him out of a third world country, surely they’d be willing to do the same from a first world country.
- pnw_hazor 6y agoThe Japanese criminal justice system is not up to first world standards. "The litany of violations that commonly take place while the detainee is in daiyou kangoku would befit places such as China, Turkey, or the Israeli occupied West Bank. Detainees are subject to extremely long (e.g. over twelve hours) questioning sessions, designed to wear them down. Sleep deprivation is common, as is the deprivation of adequate food, and suspects are often made to stand in uncomfortable positions for hours on end. Intimidation is the order of the day, with techniques such as repeated screaming in the detainee’s ears, and, though rarer, beatings have also been known to take place." https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/02/japans-authoritarian-criminal-justice-system/ https://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06/02/japans-authoritarian...
- popcorncolonel 6y agoAh our favorite third world countries, like China, Japan, and Israel.
- redstripe 6y agoIs leaving a country really that hard if you have a little money? Seems like something you should be able to do without the assistance of green berets unless you're in a movie. A country like Japan must have: 1. Dozens of private jets leaving it's airspace daily. 2. Hundreds of fishing boats leaving it territorial waters daily.
- kthxbye123 6y agoI think it becomes more difficult when you are an extremely high profile prisoner like Ghosn.
- dntrkv 6y agoI just looked up his escape from Japan and it really does read like a scene out of a movie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn#Flight_from_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn#Flight_from_Japan
- dmurray 6y agoYou need someone's help, if only to proposition the fishing boat captains. Best to have an intermediary there rather than risk being identified. Former special forces are stereotypically more likely than most to end up in that kind of "fixer" role, even if they don't need their military skills for this particular job.
- krustyburger 6y agoHe was under house arrest and his residence was being actively surveilled so it was quite a feat just to get him to the airport. As I recall, one of the factors that made the whole thing possible was that the authorities had allowed him to retain one of his three passports. That mistake proved very costly.
- alwayseasy 6y agoThis story proves how you can do it if you have a "little" money. Given that he was the highest profile prisoner in the country it's still hard to go to an airport or fishing port and corrupt your way out alone. An old businessman isn't a special operative or spy.
- wonderwonder 6y agoIf these guys are smart, they would take advantage of the current president and do a full on social media push to get his attention. If orchestrated properly it would almost guarantee they are not extradited. It checks all the boxes, military, foreign governments, extradition.
- blantonl 6y agoExactly. Put the memo on Trump's desk and remind him they were special operations soldiers and they're gonna be free and clear.
- ilamont 6y agoCan't read the article, but IIRC the elder Taylor's wife is from Lebanon and he spent a lot of time there, even though he is from the Boston area and has a home here. Can't believe his lawyers didn't recommend he go to Lebanon sooner, considering the amount of information made public about this case. Japan and U.S. have extradition treaties, and they must have been aware of the risk.
- clamprecht 6y agoIf his lawyers recommended he go to Lebanon sooner, how much less do you think his lawyers could extract out of him? Lawyers don't always look out for their clients' best interest.
- chihuahua 6y agoWhat I find very strange about Ghosn's escape is how much information about it was made public. It seems that none of the people involved should have been interested in giving any information to the press. Everyone would have been much better off if Ghosn disappears in Japan, resurfaces in Lebanon, and no one says how it happened. Instead there were newspaper articles with abundant detail about every step along the way. How did that happen?
- jessermeyer 6y agoMy fiance went to middle school with Peter in a small, rural town out in nowhere Northern Massachusetts. Small world.
- Jugurtha 6y ago>U.S. Arrests Former Green Beret, Son, in Connection with Ghosn Escape from Japan Would the title have been clearer if it were "U.S. Arrests Former Green Beret and Son in Connection with Ghosn Escape from Japan" I understood the title as meaning that the former Green Beret's name was Son and that said Green Beret was already cited in the media because the title didn't include a "full name", only "Son".
- _iyig 6y agoGiven recent headlines, I wondered for a moment whether Masayoshi Son had served in the U.S. Special Forces.
- blantonl 6y agoIt's been extremely disturbing to see how much the culture of special operations military has changed in the past 20 years. Previously, Navy Seal and Green Berets operated in silent, keeping the sausage making of military special operations quiet and secret, just doing their duty. Now, it seems like every Navy SEAL now publically writes a book, sponsors a coffee line, or slaps their name, likeness and story all over everything from T-Shirts to gun accessories to clothing lines. It's made a complete mockery of what has always been a silent service and honorable job, and it's spawned a HUGE environment of tacticool people who want to act and look the part. And then a lot of these special operations folks have decided to cash in on the privatization component of special operations - we've seen the Venezuelan attempted coup, and this. Crazy times...
- cosmodisk 6y agoBecause they are fed up with making pennies. It's the case in pretty much every country,only in the US they tend to have a little bit more so called opportunities because of mass obsession about anything military related. In my own country the guys from special forces take unpaid holidays and go abroad for some lucrative private contracts because the government pays peanuts.
- arkades 6y agoI can't make any claim to expertise, as I've only known a handful of these folks in the US, but from what I've heard, they don't make pennies. They just make a lot less than what private industry is willing to pay for mercenaries. There is, in fairness, a difference.
- blaser-waffle 6y agoAs true with code as with pulling triggers. Work for the Feds and pull 150k around DC and a security clearance. Some of the seniors at big contractors pull big $$$. Meanwhile, you can get a total comp of 400k or more working for a FAANGM out west while smoking weed everyday and banging foreigners. My understanding is that the SOF and SEALs get paid well, even as enlisted folks (who get paid less than officers), but why settle for an adequate paycheck when you can have a kick-ass one? Doubly so, since the kinds of people who become Spec Ops are hyper-motivated and deliver results.
- bookofjoe 6y agohttps://archive.vn/anvA4 https://archive.vn/anvA4
- neonate 6y agohttps://archive.md/c67BE https://archive.md/c67BE
- unhomedcoder 6y agoyou know the plausible conspiracy theory that FANG etc companies for the past 15 years have been deploying an anti-competitive strategy of soaking up tech talent into excessively compensated jobs and putting them to work on vaporware BS projects that get canned after 3-5 years? even though GoogaAppaFaceSoftZon waste billions of dollars keeping tech nerds on the hamster wheel, that is still cheaper than the risk of having a large pool of Ronin tech geniuses who will launch competion to FAANG. i often wonder if the same strategy is at play in Private Military Corps. having tens of thousands of retired and hungry for action SOCOM super soldiers could be a disaster. Having a large pool of idle mercs would make it easier for some Dr No to hire them to launch coups or terrorist attacks, like we have seen with the Zetas Cartel and the Mexican military in general. so PMCs serve a purpose to soak up excess SOCOM labor capacity, and keep them busy on movie script busy work that doesn't actually accomplish very much. The Pentagon doesn't have to worry about a veteran's coup like Smedley Butler's Business Plot against FDR in 1933. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot while PMC's lavish compensation seems to us like an irrational market, counter-intuitively it is perfectly rational compared to the counter risk cost of coups and terrorism. i would go even further and say 99% of the Infosec/CyberWhatever DFENS industry is also the same strategy of soaking up excess hacker labor on make-work. how much duplication of effort and futility is there in the Infosec industry. as we have seen from Snowden leaks and the Shadowbroker leaks of NSA source code, all digital security is a joke to Nation State hackers. NSA doesn't even need to break a sweat to disable all versions of every known AV, firewalls and traffic mirrors never spot them because they have countless exploits to root the scanners. so what purpose do marquee Computer Security corps like Crowdstrike, Mandiant, Symantec etc serve? Infosec corps soak up hacker labor so we dont have 50,000 underemployed hackers who will get bored or angry and hack the planet. it's cheaper to give potentially dangerous people fake jobs than to risk them destroying The System.
- oh_sigh 6y ago> into excessively compensated jobs This is the problem with your conspiracy theory. I work for a FAANG, and maybe about 1/3rd of the people who quit end up leaving to start or join a startup. Paying them tons of money gives them the exact resources to go off and start that competitor.
- vaxman 6y agoThis is a sham, Gohn was a political prisoner and to do this before Memorial Day and during the Covid outbreak is pretty low. The US courts need to dismiss the request for extradition of American patriots who are accused of helping free him or the Administration should get involved. Canceling plans to use Japanese modules on github for a mission critical system —I don’t need drama in my tech!
- sunstone 6y agoThere are almost 300 comments on this story and not one of them (that I read) has mentioned how shady the Japanese government have been in the handling of this case. They basically conspired with management at Nissan to have Ghosn taken into custody on trumped up commercial charges because they weren't happy with how they perceived Ghosn was planning to deal with Nissan which were entirely legal. Once they had him in custody they then proceeded drag out the process of his legal situation when they ought to have proceeded as promptly as possible. But since they didn't have much of a legal case they decided to just drag their feet and let him rot in custody. US authorities would do well to put as much investigation effort into the process in Japan as they put in investigating these two.
- vaxman 6y agoYep and I got downvoted for trying to educate.. I wear my newly negative karma on this side like a badge of honor.