6 ms·

Pirate Bay Founder Released From Solitary Confinement

110 points by cyphersanctus 14y ago

cyphersanctus 14y ago
Solitary confinement... What kind of justice system still considers this kind of punishment a valid form of reformation. Heres an insightful article by The NewYorker with regards to the ethical implications of solitary confinement: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
- droithomme 14y ago
  It's torture, there's no doubt about it. Especially when it goes on for more than a few days, then the psychological damage can become becomes permanent. In this case he was in there three months. Many prisoners tortured this way become so psychologically fractured they can no longer defend themselves in court, such as the case of Jose Padilla, kept in solitary for years, and who went completely insane as a result. Burning someone with hot irons leaves marks on the outside, but you can get over it. The damage done from solitary confinement doesn't go away. Another article on the practice - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/03/201137125936219469.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/03/2011371259... Interestingly, at the time that was written a year and a half ago they stated "In Europe, solitary confinement has largely been abandoned, and it is widely viewed as a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights conventions". And yet here is Sweden implementing this practice, recognized in Europe as torture, for someone accused of copyright infringement. Certainly not a violent crime.
  - nova 14y ago
    > And yet here is Sweden implementing this practice, recognized in Europe as torture, for someone accused of copyright infringement. Certainly not a violent crime. Just think of all the money, power and influence behind intellectual property. It's a huge tool of wealth concentration. A few companies literally own almost all human culture: literature, music, movies, even science papers. For ever. They're setting an example. It's like messing with the kings of old (and not that old). You'll end with your head on a spike, for everyone to see.
  - georgeorwell 14y ago
    I believe it's also harder on you if you're mentally ill, and so because the torture is likely to provoke or worsen mental illness, it becomes worse torture the longer it continues. To be fair, most if not all tortures have this quality. The Ashley Smith case up in Canada is also terrible - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Smith_inquest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Smith_inquest - the girl killed herself in solitary while guards watched as they were instructed not to intervene. It would be nice if there were a point where prisoners were guaranteed transfer to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.
    - droithomme 14y ago
      Wow, thanks for that link, that is amazing. So a child is flinging crabapples (which are tiny) at the mailman. Rather than ignore it or tell her to cut it out, she is arrested and put in the system to teach her a lesson where she is brutalized with progressive increasing severity, making her more and more angry, and misbehave more and more, getting charged with trespassing and creating a disturbance. Finally, with her never having committed anything that most rational people would consider serious crimes, she turns 18 and they lock her in adult prison in solitary confinement where she kills herself in despair. According to http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/out_of_control/ http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/out_of_control/ the crab apple flinging charge ended up resulting in a total of 4 years hard prison time. The methods used against this child by the Canadian authorities are quite interesting. In this article we find that they would transfer her from place to place wearing a black hood, CIA torture/Guatanamo Bay style, and drugged with powerful sedatives administered without oversight of competent medical authorities: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/10/31/ashley-smith-inquest-scope.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/10/31/ashley-smith-.... From this it is clear her abuse was not something that just happened at a single rogue facility. If you beat your dog everyday and it finally bites you, is it a bad dog? Is the dog mentally ill? I see she was adopted and is obviously from her appearance an indigenous first nations child. It's quite common for these children to be kidnapped from their nations by the canadian government in order to be resocialized away from their culture under the guise of protecting them and the premise that first nations people are incapable of caring for their own children and exposure to their own culture is a form of abuse. It's a racist and genocidal policy the goal of which is to exterminate their ethnicity and culture. This has been called "The Lost Generation". http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/thelostgeneration.pdf http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/thelostgenerati...
- NIL8 14y ago
  Powerful and enlightening. Thank you for the link.
- friendly_chap 14y ago
  That article was hard to read. So much suffering in this world.
- kryptiskt 14y ago
  It's not a punishment, it's a form of pre-trial custody under restrictions (can't read news, can't have unmonitored communication with people outside) so you can't interfere with the criminal investigation.
  - pyre 14y ago
    How would reading the news allow him to interfere with a criminal investigation while in prison?
    - mongol 14y ago
      It could allow him to adjust his testimony in trial, to align with other evidence reported.
      - pyre 14y ago
        I don't see how adjusting his testimony at trial interferes with the criminal investigation. Especially since they kept him in solitary for months, only to release him now, and still no charges are laid against him (just nebulous 'suspicions').
      - gizmo686 14y ago
        The prosecution is required to share all evidence they have with the defense before a trial.
        pyre 14y ago
        Is this true in Sweden (the setting of this story)?
  - gizmo686 14y ago
    Call it what you like, it is still inhumane.
- qwerta 14y ago
  I found it very cynical that man hold in custody has less rights than in regular prison.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- eCa 14y ago
  He's in Sweden.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
pathy 14y ago
Torrentfreak isn't exactly an unbiased source in this case. While has has been held under restrictions it is not like he has been totally cut off from the world, he has still met some other people, gotten mail, been able to buy snacks etc. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10pivx/pirate_bay_founder_remains_locked_up_without/c6fkuji http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10pivx/pirate_ba... Offers a pretty good overview of how the Swedish judicial system works. The key reasons why he has been held in restrictive custody are as follows (From the link above): There is a risk the suspect destroys evidence or in other ways affect the investigation. There is risk that the person might flee or avoid a future trial.
- droithomme 14y ago
  The source of claims he has been kept in solitary has been his mother Kristina Svartholm since the prison officials have refused comment regarding his care. On the particular issue of whether or not solitary confinement is now used in Sweden, here is a newspaper in Sweden confirming they currently do use solitary confinement for some prisoners in Sweden: http://www.thelocal.se/1927/20050822/ http://www.thelocal.se/1927/20050822/ This article quotes Jerzy Sarnecki, a Swedish expert in criminology who teaches at Stockholm University. He states, "Solitary confinement worsens the quality of criminal care. Long term isolation is powerfully destructive. When you consider that many of those who are confined have psychological problems, the effects can be devastating." The article also quotes Christer Karlsson, Swedish and chairman of the help organisation Criminals Return Into Society, saying solitary confinement "can break prisoners down, physically and psychologically". The article also notes that Swedish prisons have more hardened criminals as prisoners than before. Thus perhaps one would argue that solitary confinement for non-violent prisoners protects them from being harmed by the hardened criminals. Perhaps the vast majority of prisoners in Sweden are dangerous violent serial killers and rapists and thus it is more economical to put the small number of harmless non-violent prisoners in solitary confinement to protect them rather than put the violent offenders in solitary to protect others from them. It has yet to be demonstrated that this is the case though, that the majority of prisoners are violent and can not be managed. In addition, it is known that solitary confinement is damaging and is a form of torture, thus to force torture upon someone in order to protect them seems counterproductive. Torture as therapy is not an established or recognized way of protecting people, and runs counter to what is known about torture.
stanfordkid 14y ago
While I do believe his confinement is somewhat unethical ... I am still quite intrigued that technical people somehow support the likes of KimDotCom or this guy. I've never used megaupload or piratebay for anything other than ripping off companies of content they own and have right to hold a monopoly over. Every person I know does the same thing. While I greatly appreciate and have benefitted from some of what they do I think the justice system is doing the right thing in giving these guys hell. I agree that it is inevitable that the monopolies will need to change their model but I see no problem w/ suing and fining the living hell out of people that try to bring them down illegally. A strong justice system that upholds the law is above and beyond the most important thing -- despite the inevitable inefficiencies it often introduces to a rapidly changing society.
- tripzilch 14y ago
  > I've never used megaupload or piratebay for anything other than ripping off companies of content they own and have right to hold a monopoly over. Every person I know does the same thing. Everyone, really? Myself and many people I know actually do (also) use those services for legitimate purposes. In fact, when TPB got blocked by the larger ISPs in NL, the first times I was bothered by that was when I was linked to their blog (blocked) and when I was linked to a legal torrent of someone distributing some large data files (forget what) via TPB. Another case in point, a significant part of MU's 25 petabyte that is being held, isn't infringing either. I'm not saying these services aren't being used for illegitimate purposes, they obviously are. I just find it surprising that you, or anyone you know, has only ever used them for anything but such purposes. edit: while I'm here, I might as well point out that characterizing the confinement as "somewhat unethical" is kind of an understatement IMO.
  - joering2 14y ago
    But I am pretty sure you agree with the fact that majority of their traffic/links are directing to copyrighted material that they have no right to distribute anyways? I am not against TPB. I think in most part they benefited good productions. If a movie is real good, enough people will still go to see it in the big screen and buy a br/dvd (production studios are limited with ways to trick people - did you notice how a trailer can be made of all good parts, 10 minutes worth, and then be a crappy movie afterwards?). I know plenty of people that love it because it saves them money on crappy movies (I am not sure if you can get refund for a movie ticket when you say "this movie sucks -- I want my money back!"). Said that, just because any company or business is doing something right while doing other evil things, LE will still go after them anyways. Simply put, you cannot setup a charity organization that feeds homeless, while selling drugs on the side, and ask LE to leave you alone, because some people love to donate for a good cause [charity].

110 points by cyphersanctus 14y ago

Solitary confinement... What kind of justice system still considers this kind of punishment a valid form of reformation. Heres an insightful article by The NewYorker with regards to the ethical implications of solitary confinement: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...

droithomme 14y ago
It's torture, there's no doubt about it. Especially when it goes on for more than a few days, then the psychological damage can become becomes permanent. In this case he was in there three months. Many prisoners tortured this way become so psychologically fractured they can no longer defend themselves in court, such as the case of Jose Padilla, kept in solitary for years, and who went completely insane as a result. Burning someone with hot irons leaves marks on the outside, but you can get over it. The damage done from solitary confinement doesn't go away. Another article on the practice - http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/03/201137125936219469.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/03/2011371259... Interestingly, at the time that was written a year and a half ago they stated "In Europe, solitary confinement has largely been abandoned, and it is widely viewed as a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, in violation of international human rights conventions". And yet here is Sweden implementing this practice, recognized in Europe as torture, for someone accused of copyright infringement. Certainly not a violent crime.
- nova 14y ago
  > And yet here is Sweden implementing this practice, recognized in Europe as torture, for someone accused of copyright infringement. Certainly not a violent crime. Just think of all the money, power and influence behind intellectual property. It's a huge tool of wealth concentration. A few companies literally own almost all human culture: literature, music, movies, even science papers. For ever. They're setting an example. It's like messing with the kings of old (and not that old). You'll end with your head on a spike, for everyone to see.
- georgeorwell 14y ago
  I believe it's also harder on you if you're mentally ill, and so because the torture is likely to provoke or worsen mental illness, it becomes worse torture the longer it continues. To be fair, most if not all tortures have this quality. The Ashley Smith case up in Canada is also terrible - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Smith_inquest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Smith_inquest - the girl killed herself in solitary while guards watched as they were instructed not to intervene. It would be nice if there were a point where prisoners were guaranteed transfer to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.
  - droithomme 14y ago
    Wow, thanks for that link, that is amazing. So a child is flinging crabapples (which are tiny) at the mailman. Rather than ignore it or tell her to cut it out, she is arrested and put in the system to teach her a lesson where she is brutalized with progressive increasing severity, making her more and more angry, and misbehave more and more, getting charged with trespassing and creating a disturbance. Finally, with her never having committed anything that most rational people would consider serious crimes, she turns 18 and they lock her in adult prison in solitary confinement where she kills herself in despair. According to http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/out_of_control/ http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/out_of_control/ the crab apple flinging charge ended up resulting in a total of 4 years hard prison time. The methods used against this child by the Canadian authorities are quite interesting. In this article we find that they would transfer her from place to place wearing a black hood, CIA torture/Guatanamo Bay style, and drugged with powerful sedatives administered without oversight of competent medical authorities: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/10/31/ashley-smith-inquest-scope.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/10/31/ashley-smith-.... From this it is clear her abuse was not something that just happened at a single rogue facility. If you beat your dog everyday and it finally bites you, is it a bad dog? Is the dog mentally ill? I see she was adopted and is obviously from her appearance an indigenous first nations child. It's quite common for these children to be kidnapped from their nations by the canadian government in order to be resocialized away from their culture under the guise of protecting them and the premise that first nations people are incapable of caring for their own children and exposure to their own culture is a form of abuse. It's a racist and genocidal policy the goal of which is to exterminate their ethnicity and culture. This has been called "The Lost Generation". http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/thelostgeneration.pdf http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/thelostgenerati...
NIL8 14y ago
Powerful and enlightening. Thank you for the link.
friendly_chap 14y ago
That article was hard to read. So much suffering in this world.
kryptiskt 14y ago
It's not a punishment, it's a form of pre-trial custody under restrictions (can't read news, can't have unmonitored communication with people outside) so you can't interfere with the criminal investigation.
- pyre 14y ago
  How would reading the news allow him to interfere with a criminal investigation while in prison?
  - mongol 14y ago
    It could allow him to adjust his testimony in trial, to align with other evidence reported.
    - pyre 14y ago
      I don't see how adjusting his testimony at trial interferes with the criminal investigation. Especially since they kept him in solitary for months, only to release him now, and still no charges are laid against him (just nebulous 'suspicions').
    - gizmo686 14y ago
      The prosecution is required to share all evidence they have with the defense before a trial.
      - pyre 14y ago
        Is this true in Sweden (the setting of this story)?
- gizmo686 14y ago
  Call it what you like, it is still inhumane.
qwerta 14y ago
I found it very cynical that man hold in custody has less rights than in regular prison.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

eCa 14y ago
He's in Sweden.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

pathy 14y ago

Torrentfreak isn't exactly an unbiased source in this case. While has has been held under restrictions it is not like he has been totally cut off from the world, he has still met some other people, gotten mail, been able to buy snacks etc. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10pivx/pirate_bay_founder_remains_locked_up_without/c6fkuji http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/10pivx/pirate_ba... Offers a pretty good overview of how the Swedish judicial system works. The key reasons why he has been held in restrictive custody are as follows (From the link above): There is a risk the suspect destroys evidence or in other ways affect the investigation. There is risk that the person might flee or avoid a future trial.

droithomme 14y ago
The source of claims he has been kept in solitary has been his mother Kristina Svartholm since the prison officials have refused comment regarding his care. On the particular issue of whether or not solitary confinement is now used in Sweden, here is a newspaper in Sweden confirming they currently do use solitary confinement for some prisoners in Sweden: http://www.thelocal.se/1927/20050822/ http://www.thelocal.se/1927/20050822/ This article quotes Jerzy Sarnecki, a Swedish expert in criminology who teaches at Stockholm University. He states, "Solitary confinement worsens the quality of criminal care. Long term isolation is powerfully destructive. When you consider that many of those who are confined have psychological problems, the effects can be devastating." The article also quotes Christer Karlsson, Swedish and chairman of the help organisation Criminals Return Into Society, saying solitary confinement "can break prisoners down, physically and psychologically". The article also notes that Swedish prisons have more hardened criminals as prisoners than before. Thus perhaps one would argue that solitary confinement for non-violent prisoners protects them from being harmed by the hardened criminals. Perhaps the vast majority of prisoners in Sweden are dangerous violent serial killers and rapists and thus it is more economical to put the small number of harmless non-violent prisoners in solitary confinement to protect them rather than put the violent offenders in solitary to protect others from them. It has yet to be demonstrated that this is the case though, that the majority of prisoners are violent and can not be managed. In addition, it is known that solitary confinement is damaging and is a form of torture, thus to force torture upon someone in order to protect them seems counterproductive. Torture as therapy is not an established or recognized way of protecting people, and runs counter to what is known about torture.

stanfordkid 14y ago

While I do believe his confinement is somewhat unethical ... I am still quite intrigued that technical people somehow support the likes of KimDotCom or this guy. I've never used megaupload or piratebay for anything other than ripping off companies of content they own and have right to hold a monopoly over. Every person I know does the same thing. While I greatly appreciate and have benefitted from some of what they do I think the justice system is doing the right thing in giving these guys hell. I agree that it is inevitable that the monopolies will need to change their model but I see no problem w/ suing and fining the living hell out of people that try to bring them down illegally. A strong justice system that upholds the law is above and beyond the most important thing -- despite the inevitable inefficiencies it often introduces to a rapidly changing society.

tripzilch 14y ago
> I've never used megaupload or piratebay for anything other than ripping off companies of content they own and have right to hold a monopoly over. Every person I know does the same thing. Everyone, really? Myself and many people I know actually do (also) use those services for legitimate purposes. In fact, when TPB got blocked by the larger ISPs in NL, the first times I was bothered by that was when I was linked to their blog (blocked) and when I was linked to a legal torrent of someone distributing some large data files (forget what) via TPB. Another case in point, a significant part of MU's 25 petabyte that is being held, isn't infringing either. I'm not saying these services aren't being used for illegitimate purposes, they obviously are. I just find it surprising that you, or anyone you know, has only ever used them for anything but such purposes. edit: while I'm here, I might as well point out that characterizing the confinement as "somewhat unethical" is kind of an understatement IMO.
- joering2 14y ago
  But I am pretty sure you agree with the fact that majority of their traffic/links are directing to copyrighted material that they have no right to distribute anyways? I am not against TPB. I think in most part they benefited good productions. If a movie is real good, enough people will still go to see it in the big screen and buy a br/dvd (production studios are limited with ways to trick people - did you notice how a trailer can be made of all good parts, 10 minutes worth, and then be a crappy movie afterwards?). I know plenty of people that love it because it saves them money on crappy movies (I am not sure if you can get refund for a movie ticket when you say "this movie sucks -- I want my money back!"). Said that, just because any company or business is doing something right while doing other evil things, LE will still go after them anyways. Simply put, you cannot setup a charity organization that feeds homeless, while selling drugs on the side, and ask LE to leave you alone, because some people love to donate for a good cause [charity].