4 ms·

Frankly I don't think anyone should be extradited to the USA. I just have zero confidence in the US legal system. Prosecutions seem politically motivated. Pun

Frankly I don't think anyone should be extradited to the USA. I just have zero confidence in the US legal system. Prosecutions seem politically motivated. Punishments are unreasonably harsh (I suspect to drive plea deals over actual trials). The quality of your defence depends entirely on how much you have to spend. And there seems to be a weird bias making prosecution and conviction of foreigners more likely for no reason beyond them being foreign. The US also seems to like extradition for people who's crimes didn't even happen in America. This case seems very much to fit that last criteria. If the deal was subject to British law, why isn't any accusation of fraud? It doesn't help that our (I'm a brit) extradition agreement with the US seems filled with its own issues (extradition requires no evidence and doesn't seem to allow the usual defences). That's without getting into the humanity of us prison system. Edit: Being down voted on HN is really annoying because it won't let you reply if your down voted. Even to replies to your comment. Thanks for your comments, I'll try and reply tomorrow!

dontbenebby 5y ago
> The quality of your defence depends entirely on how much you have to spend. I’m not disagreeing but he’s quite affluent so no worries “mate”.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Yeah, that is true. Maybe he'll get off despite being guilty? :)
  - analognoise 5y ago
    The smiley face makes it sound like you think that's a good outcome for fraud?
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      No, sorry. I won't comment on his guilt/innocent. I don't know either way. My smile is bemused/embarrassed that we've reached a point where he will go and stand trial in another country for an allegation of something that happened here, and whether he is found innocent or guilty won't really effect my opinion of him because my faith in the system is that low.
      - analognoise 5y ago
        Oh, ok. That makes more sense; thanks for the clarification.
beebeepka 5y ago
How about Kim Dot-com. Dispatching special forces for a geeky fat dude making entertainment execs unhappy by facilitating piracy
abz10 5y ago
The Serious Fraud Office has corruption problems; so I wouldn’t expect much justice out of them at all. Mike Lynch is the bad guy in this. Autonomy was an intentional fraud that was offloaded into HP - with the help of Goldman Sachs and Meg Whitman (if my memory serves correctly.) The fraud was well known in the small Cambridge tech community as their former workers warned others about it. It’s hard to overstate the effect Autonomy had on the UK tech scene. It split my former peers along ethical lines. As bad as US justice is; in this case it may still be better than the UK.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- __coaxialcabal 5y ago
  At one point Miles asked Apotheker why he hadn't read Autonomy's most recent financial results around the time of the deal, asking incredulously: "You didn't have 30 minutes?" Apotheker responded: "I was running a $125 billion company, sir, and minutes are pretty precious."[1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/leo-apotheker-abandon-11-billion-hp-autonomy-acquisition-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/leo-apotheker-abandon-11-bil...
throwaway4good 5y ago
"Prosecutions seem politically motivated." Maybe because in the US prosecutors are elected / directly appointed by politicians, whereas in Europe they are in generally part of a self-selecting career bureaucracy.
OJFord 5y ago
> extradition agreement with the US seems filled with its own issues (extradition requires no evidence and doesn't seem to allow the usual defences) Is that bad or unusual? It's no different than being required to appear in court in your own country 'without evidence' really is it? IANAL but AIUI extradition just means one country will uphold the other's standard of compelling you to appear in its court. (resp. also serving sentence if tried in absentia.)
- jen20 5y ago
  > Is that bad or unusual? Unusual, I don't know. Bad, yes, absolutely.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Why? It's not obvious to me.
    - jen20 5y ago
      It's not obvious why it's bad that anyone can be shipped off to another country (potentially with a much worse criminal justice system than their home) without any evidence being presented..?
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  A few thoughts from the top of my head: * In the uk you'll get police bail for almost all accusations (police bail means meaning released from jail, agreeing not to contact other people involved and not to leave the country). In the US I don't think you get bail, except for cash bail? And even then, you cannot go home or go to work, you're stuck in the US awaiting trial. Bye bye job. Bye bye marriage maybe given how long US trials, appeals, counter appeals etc are. * The US and UK have pretty different justice systems. If you were dragged to the UK for trial, you can forget attorney client privilege. Or any real challenges to the evidence against you. Illegally collected evidence is still admissible here and if you confess to your solicitor, he has to plead guilty for you and inform the other side. * Also, there are a lot of things that aren't crimes in one country but are in the other. Should you think about English law before you take actions in America? What if you're drunk in a field with your cow? That's illegal in the uk. Fancy coming over to be tried for it? * the above leads to anothet issue: you can use extradition to bypass the constitution. You can be prosecuted for critiquing the president right, 1st amendment? Only you can, German makes it illegal to criticise foreign leaders, so Biden or Trump can ask them to extradite you, and have you tried there. Even though you've (presumably) never been to Germany. Sound good? Extradition usually requires some evidence (the same as being charged locally). It seems weird the police won't have enough to hold me overnight, but I can be bundled onto a flight just because. Extradition usually requires your crime to be committed in the place you're going for trial. That's partly to avoid stupid laws (ever critisized the king of Thailand? That's a capital crime over there) and party to make it clear who prosecutes (england prosecutes crimes in England where they're our problem, ditto the USA). Edit: -3? Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition#Bars_to_extradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition#Bars_to_extraditio...
quickthrowman 5y ago
> The quality of your defence depends entirely on how much you have to spend. This is true, but Mike Lynch has plenty of money to spend on lawyers.
creddit 5y ago
> Being down voted on HN is really annoying because it won't let you reply if your down voted. Even to replies to your comment. Thanks for your comments, I'll try and reply tomorrow! This is wildly untrue.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Is it? I've been rate limited. Its taken me 60min of hitting reply to you to get this comment in How come that only happens when I have a down voted comment so I just assumed. Error message: You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks.
  - fouric 5y ago
    The HN software increases the rate limit threshold for posters that meet certain criteria that are designed to try to catch those not participating in constructive discourse. How effective the filters are, I cannot say, but that's the intention.
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      To be honest, it's miles better than reddit so I can't really complain.
  - creddit 5y ago
    I have the occasional comment that goes negative and it’s never been an issue whatsoever. It’s possible then that HN has some other criteria that are limiting you? Possibly you go negative very often or something. I’ve also not hit a rate limit before either, though I rarely comment super densely.
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      Who knows? There is a page someone put together somewhere that I think addresses some of the HN automated rules I think but I can't find it quickly. The point is, being an arsehole is my right and asking about it is a hippa violation and my name is Karen and I want to speak to the manager! /s Edit: thinking about it, I have been quite unpopular recently as I'm not super on board with big tech being evil or monopolies law being the right tool to fix it... Edit2: I think this is the page I mentioned above https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

dontbenebby 5y ago

> The quality of your defence depends entirely on how much you have to spend. I’m not disagreeing but he’s quite affluent so no worries “mate”.

LatteLazy 5y ago
Yeah, that is true. Maybe he'll get off despite being guilty? :)
- analognoise 5y ago
  The smiley face makes it sound like you think that's a good outcome for fraud?
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    No, sorry. I won't comment on his guilt/innocent. I don't know either way. My smile is bemused/embarrassed that we've reached a point where he will go and stand trial in another country for an allegation of something that happened here, and whether he is found innocent or guilty won't really effect my opinion of him because my faith in the system is that low.
    - analognoise 5y ago
      Oh, ok. That makes more sense; thanks for the clarification.

beebeepka 5y ago

How about Kim Dot-com. Dispatching special forces for a geeky fat dude making entertainment execs unhappy by facilitating piracy

abz10 5y ago

The Serious Fraud Office has corruption problems; so I wouldn’t expect much justice out of them at all. Mike Lynch is the bad guy in this. Autonomy was an intentional fraud that was offloaded into HP - with the help of Goldman Sachs and Meg Whitman (if my memory serves correctly.) The fraud was well known in the small Cambridge tech community as their former workers warned others about it. It’s hard to overstate the effect Autonomy had on the UK tech scene. It split my former peers along ethical lines. As bad as US justice is; in this case it may still be better than the UK.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
__coaxialcabal 5y ago
At one point Miles asked Apotheker why he hadn't read Autonomy's most recent financial results around the time of the deal, asking incredulously: "You didn't have 30 minutes?" Apotheker responded: "I was running a $125 billion company, sir, and minutes are pretty precious."[1] [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/leo-apotheker-abandon-11-billion-hp-autonomy-acquisition-2019-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/leo-apotheker-abandon-11-bil...

throwaway4good 5y ago

"Prosecutions seem politically motivated." Maybe because in the US prosecutors are elected / directly appointed by politicians, whereas in Europe they are in generally part of a self-selecting career bureaucracy.

OJFord 5y ago

> extradition agreement with the US seems filled with its own issues (extradition requires no evidence and doesn't seem to allow the usual defences) Is that bad or unusual? It's no different than being required to appear in court in your own country 'without evidence' really is it? IANAL but AIUI extradition just means one country will uphold the other's standard of compelling you to appear in its court. (resp. also serving sentence if tried in absentia.)

jen20 5y ago
> Is that bad or unusual? Unusual, I don't know. Bad, yes, absolutely.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Why? It's not obvious to me.
  - jen20 5y ago
    It's not obvious why it's bad that anyone can be shipped off to another country (potentially with a much worse criminal justice system than their home) without any evidence being presented..?
LatteLazy 5y ago
A few thoughts from the top of my head: * In the uk you'll get police bail for almost all accusations (police bail means meaning released from jail, agreeing not to contact other people involved and not to leave the country). In the US I don't think you get bail, except for cash bail? And even then, you cannot go home or go to work, you're stuck in the US awaiting trial. Bye bye job. Bye bye marriage maybe given how long US trials, appeals, counter appeals etc are. * The US and UK have pretty different justice systems. If you were dragged to the UK for trial, you can forget attorney client privilege. Or any real challenges to the evidence against you. Illegally collected evidence is still admissible here and if you confess to your solicitor, he has to plead guilty for you and inform the other side. * Also, there are a lot of things that aren't crimes in one country but are in the other. Should you think about English law before you take actions in America? What if you're drunk in a field with your cow? That's illegal in the uk. Fancy coming over to be tried for it? * the above leads to anothet issue: you can use extradition to bypass the constitution. You can be prosecuted for critiquing the president right, 1st amendment? Only you can, German makes it illegal to criticise foreign leaders, so Biden or Trump can ask them to extradite you, and have you tried there. Even though you've (presumably) never been to Germany. Sound good? Extradition usually requires some evidence (the same as being charged locally). It seems weird the police won't have enough to hold me overnight, but I can be bundled onto a flight just because. Extradition usually requires your crime to be committed in the place you're going for trial. That's partly to avoid stupid laws (ever critisized the king of Thailand? That's a capital crime over there) and party to make it clear who prosecutes (england prosecutes crimes in England where they're our problem, ditto the USA). Edit: -3? Really? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition#Bars_to_extradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition#Bars_to_extraditio...

quickthrowman 5y ago

> The quality of your defence depends entirely on how much you have to spend. This is true, but Mike Lynch has plenty of money to spend on lawyers.

creddit 5y ago

> Being down voted on HN is really annoying because it won't let you reply if your down voted. Even to replies to your comment. Thanks for your comments, I'll try and reply tomorrow! This is wildly untrue.

LatteLazy 5y ago
Is it? I've been rate limited. Its taken me 60min of hitting reply to you to get this comment in How come that only happens when I have a down voted comment so I just assumed. Error message: You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks.
- fouric 5y ago
  The HN software increases the rate limit threshold for posters that meet certain criteria that are designed to try to catch those not participating in constructive discourse. How effective the filters are, I cannot say, but that's the intention.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    To be honest, it's miles better than reddit so I can't really complain.
- creddit 5y ago
  I have the occasional comment that goes negative and it’s never been an issue whatsoever. It’s possible then that HN has some other criteria that are limiting you? Possibly you go negative very often or something. I’ve also not hit a rate limit before either, though I rarely comment super densely.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    Who knows? There is a page someone put together somewhere that I think addresses some of the HN automated rules I think but I can't find it quickly. The point is, being an arsehole is my right and asking about it is a hippa violation and my name is Karen and I want to speak to the manager! /s Edit: thinking about it, I have been quite unpopular recently as I'm not super on board with big tech being evil or monopolies law being the right tool to fix it... Edit2: I think this is the page I mentioned above https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented