Home Office To Ignore Wikipedia Founder's Petition Against O'Dwyer Extradition 276
An anonymous reader writes "The Home Office has confirmed home secretary Theresa May will not block TVShack founder Richard O'Dwyer's U.S. extradition, despite widespread calls for her to do so."
It would appear the fate of the tvshack founder is now sealed.
The War on Youth (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, one more small battle in the War on Youth. Let's see: cameras in the streets, ASBOs, patents that kill new competition, laws against drugs, laws against sharing, laws against resisting arrest, student loans, sugar-laden foods, credit card debt, loss of permanent jobs, the list goes on. The UK and USA lead the world in the War on Youth, which pits the old against the young. Extraditing a couple of "pirates" is just consistent with this theme.
Swap Richard for Bob Diamond (Score:5, Insightful)
Bet they don't extradite Bob Diamond for overseeing the fraud [wsj.com] of vast amounts of money that may actually have done real damage to US citizens, never mind the UK and the rest of the world.
Re:Time and Place (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Time and Place (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. These people are supposedly guilty of the heinous crime of... copying! Totally worth extraditing someone over, and why not waste taxpayer money doing so? It's not our money!
Re:Conservative party Minister: so pro USA (Score:5, Insightful)
In America you have the the Republicans, who are the equivalent of our Conservative party, and the Democrats, who are the equivalent of our Conservative party....
Re:Time and Place (Score:5, Insightful)
But only because murder is illegal in England too.
Absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
If a UK citizen can be extradited to the US for breaking US law outside the US while physically never setting foot on US soil, why don't we see people getting extradited to all sorts of countries for breaking their laws while sitting in our homes in our own countries?
Second, extradition is for serious crimes only. Why wasn't the request squashed as it's only related to a civil matter of copyright infringement, not a criminal offense?
Re:Conservative party Minister: so pro USA (Score:5, Insightful)
So the UK will extradite car driving women to Saudi Arabia, where it's illegal for women to drive, for better oil purchase conditions too?
Re:Time and Place (Score:5, Insightful)
If I fire a gun from the England border into Scotland and kill someone, you can bet I'll be extradited to Scotland to stand trial for murder.
Isn't the slight difference that murder is a crime in both countries, whereas copyright infringement isn't?
I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being extradited for a civil matter before, although no doubt someone can prove me wrong.
I have zero personal sympathy for this guy. I read an interview recently in which he said he had spent the GBP140K he had earned from his website on "normal student things" like going to the cinema and buying pizza. Which is such a load of bollocks it's a joke..
However, he certainly shouldn't be extradited for this. If this had been the other way round, there is no way he would have been extradited from the US to the UK even if he had committed a real, serious crime.
UK did not extradite... (Score:3, Insightful)
Be accused of copywrite infringement = UK extradite to USA
Be accused of rape = UK will NOT extradite to USA.
Umm excuse me but this just feels wrong.
Re:Absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, that brings up a thought - why can't Greece extradite Jamie Dimon & Lloyd Blankfein to Greece for their "crimes" at defrauding the country into massive debt? After all, if the US can extradite someone for something as "horrible" as posting *links* to *other sites* that contain copyrighted material, *surely* outright financial fraud ought to be extraditable. :-)
Re:Time and Place (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait until countries like Pakistan and Iran get in on this. All western women will need to be deported for stoning.
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
As Dr. Ben Goldacre has just tweeted, "it's the little things like extradition at the behest of a corporation that make you worry the whole world is corrupt".
I think that ship may have sailed.
I admit, I was wrong ! (Score:5, Insightful)
First, it was the case of Assange, and now this
The whole thing reads like as if the government of the United Kingdom has lowered itself to the level of being a servant of Uncle Sam
I always thought that, Great Britain, ...
- a place which gave birth to the charter of Magna Carta,
- a place where the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of round table
- a place where the Bard (William Shakespeare) produced his world famous plays
... would be proud of itself
... would take its own national sovereignty very seriously
... would never kow tow to anyone, for any reason ...
After witnessing what transpired in both cases, I have to admit, that I was wrong
Re:The War on Youth (Score:5, Insightful)
Strange thing, but there's truth in this. In an other discussion I was wondering that the current trend in demographics in relation to electorate politics creates a political system that is by nature becomes the enemy of the younger generations, and that is easy to show all over Western Europe. Most of the politicians and the people who vote for them were educated on the expense of the budget, that is, "for free". This generation benefited of the welfare state in every way, health case, job protection, rent control, council housing, cheap mortgage and property prices, so they could cut these services with the line "there ain't such thing as free lunch".
Ageing population is a real political concern for the under-thirties generation.
Re:Most of the world has no Republican equivalent (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Time and Place (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for putting someone who has been maintaining a link site into the same category with someone who sends letter bombs and murderers. For a moment I was a bit unsure, thinking that in extradition requests the seriousness of the crime and potential differences of maximum penalties in both countries ought to be considered, but your post has made it quite clear to me that having a site with links to potentially copyright infringing content should be treated directly on a par with terrorism and murder.
Re:Time and Place (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that as a number of people have pointed out above you, its a considerable question as to whether or not what he is accused of doing was in fact a crime in the UK.
It doesn't matter though, the Media Moguls and their henchmen have enough power to shape the US legal code, and in effect decree foreign policy on issues like this. Legality doesn't apply when the US Empire flexes its might.
Apparently if you do anything, anywhere, that the US Government doesn't like, you *will* be extradited to the US. This is just another example.
Re:Shock! Horror! (Score:4, Insightful)
Current UK Prime Minister David Cameron came out in support of McKinnon before he was elected
I've highlighted the most pertinent words.
Re:Time and Place (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth is that there are no rules about crimes in the world, just local conventions. The British people should rightly be up in arms about this particular case, as it means their government is selling them out to a foreign power.
Re:The War on Youth (Score:5, Insightful)
Among other things, it stirs rivalry between different segments of the population, young versus old, poor versus wealthy, politically marginalized versus the politically connected, uncredentialed versus the credentialed, etc. How are you going to get society-wide cooperation when so many groups are fighting for their piece of government squeeze?
Re:I admit, I was wrong ! (Score:4, Insightful)
The UK is run by politicians who only care about about their personal money and power.
You just described every politician in every country in the world.