Russia Issues Travel Warning To Its Citizens About United States and Extradition 369
mendax writes "The New York Times reports that the Russian government is warning its citizens to not travel to countries that have an extradition treaty with the United States, noting that 'detentions of Russian citizens in various countries, at the request of American law enforcement, have become more frequent.' The article reports the Russian foreign ministry as saying,'Experience shows that the judicial proceedings against those who were in fact kidnapped and taken to the U.S. are of a biased character, based on shaky evidence, and clearly tilted toward conviction.'"
Times have changed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not too long ago that most people in the US would be worried about Russia being the bad guy in such situations.
Stranger Than Fiction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:5, Insightful)
Please do not make this about "Right" vs "Left". Both parties love power, and don't really care about the citizens. When people bicker about "Right" vs "Left" it distracts from the real issues.
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
"No, but is an excellent propaganda phrase."
Hmmm...
prop a gan da noun
information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
How is this harmful? It appears to be simple truth.
US Allies are starting to turn their backs on them (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that Russia was ever a major ally to the US, but more and more countries are ceasing to put up with the hostile nature of the US's foreign relations policy. The US is failing in all sorts of relations due to its policies on copyrights, "terrorism," worthless wars and drug enforcement, and increasingly, other nations are no longer putting up with it.
Throughout its history, the US has more or less never had any interest in the well-being of other nations they enter relations with. Of course, you could perhaps say this is true of all nations. However, if the US is going to be so self-centered in its relations, then the best thing for the world is for them to have less of an influence in strong-arming other nations into agreeing with them. This influence historically has come largely from dominating economic pressure, but we'll see if it lasts - hopefully it doesn't. The last thing the world needs is to become more like the US.
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Times have changed. (Score:2, Insightful)
Times are always changing.
Russian citizens are stealing many millions of dollars, mostly from US banks and citizens. The Russian authorities won't stop them and won't extradite them. Now they are complaining when USA law enforcement issues warrants for their arrest and other countries act on those warrants.
Sanctions (Score:0, Insightful)
-- green led
Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what the vegans and homosexuals have to do with this, but if i remember, a lot of this started under bush and has been embraced wholeheartedly by the present administration. If you think this is about left vs. right, you don't understand american politics.
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately this is the world we in the US now live in. Courtesy of the extreme Left we are now living effectively in a police state.
Yeah, the "left". Maybe you are looking upside down at times. Both "left" and "right" are advancing it relentlessly. You know, to "protect the children" and other such diversions and lies used to impose totalitarian laws.
Police state doesn't give a fuck if it is left or right. It only cares to gain more control and maintain status quo.
Re:Biased charges, clearly tilted toward convictio (Score:3, Insightful)
I would agree that we live in a police state now. But no one has tested it yet. But everything is in place. Give it some time and we'll all look back and say *oh shit*
Re:Biased charges, clearly tilted toward convictio (Score:5, Insightful)
Forgot GITMO and the number of people detained there without ever having seen a judge, or a lawyer?
A country where you can be taken off the street without any cause, just by labeling you a 'terrorist' sounds just like the Soviet Union, North Korea and Nazi Germany..
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:1, Insightful)
What "extreme Left" would that be? Remember that this is the US we're talking about, where the "Left" consists of that tiny slice of the political spectrum that's not made up of barking mad right-wingers.
What the hell happened to my country? (Score:5, Insightful)
These are the kinds of warnings WE used to give about RUSSIAN satellite nations.
This is all turning into a bad dream...
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
Propaganda works best where you have at least an element of truth. The conviction rates, sentences and so on for the poor and rich in the US legal system are extremely different (look also at black vs white). Imagine how much worse it is for a poor (relative to the USA - he could be pretty rich at home) Russian who doesn't properly speak English and has the huge psychological pressure of having nobody nearby he knows at all.
Simple fact: the US legal system is deeply scary; there is a huge false conviction rate. Remember what we are always told, death sentences are the ones that are most investigated and are 100% sure. The innocence project shows the US has a minimum of a 12% false conviction rate [caught.net] for death sentences; other crimes must be much worse. Unlike people convicted before DNA evidence, nothing new will show up after the fact to save you.
Most convictions in the US are "shaky" and many are simply wrong. I'm sure it's even worse in most of Russia, but if you are having to compare yourself with Russia then you have already gone mad.
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:3, Insightful)
Holy shit, you quit taking your meds again, didn't you? There isn't, and hasn't been an "extreme left" in this country in almost 40 years. It's that the extreme right keeps moving more extremely right that makes people who used to be described as "moderate Republicans" (like Barak Obama) look like lefties. These days, idiots like you, who use sentences like the above quoted, wouldn't have allowed Ronald Reagan to run as a Republican because he wasn't "right" enough. And somebody like an Everett Dirkson, well, "hangin' would be too good for him", right?
Re:Absolutely the case (Score:4, Insightful)
That is exactly his point. Both sides of politics are at fault.
I sure hope so (Score:4, Insightful)
I sure hope that if the US goes through the trouble of extraditing someone, its case is "biased towards conviction".
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
Warning only for people known to be wanted by U.S. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Russian Foreign Ministry posted advice of a somewhat different nature on Monday, cautioning people wanted by the United States not to visit nations that have an extradition treaty with it."
Unfortunately, that small omission significantly changes the meaning of the line.
Re:Biased charges, clearly tilted toward convictio (Score:5, Insightful)
A totalitarian state is one in which people used to say, "It can't happen here."
Re:In Soviet Russia.. (Score:5, Insightful)
As I recall, the US now basically holds the position that anyone can break American law anywhere in the world and may be prosecuted for such as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
I'm certain someone else can come up with chapter and verse ...
Re:What the hell happened to my country? (Score:2, Insightful)
I did the googling. Looks like US is trying to get to people who are not US citizens, and never broke any US laws on US soil. Doesn't sound right to me. I'm sure I've broken at least your copyright laws, and alcohol laws, and most likely many others. As it happens I don't live in the US, and sure as hell am not planning to come for a visit, which is a pity, because i really wanted to see the statue of liberty, that once stood for well.. liberty. And grand canyon. And las vegas. Luckily the world has many places i'd like to visit, so I'm not too bummed about your goverments behaviour. Keep on going, I'll try to help you as best as I can when you finally decide to make the change. If history tells me anything that is still more tha ten years away, maybe more, you have a huge country over there, things move slowly.
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with false conviction actually involves a variety of issues, incredibly poor handling of eye witnesses, prosecuting attorneys counting coup towards political advancement and the punishment proffered on innocent defendants who refuse to plea out because of their innocence (and conversely innocent defendants that choose to plea out rather that face draconian sentences.)
All off this is weighted heavily against poor. Public defense is a joke in most states, and nonexistent in the very places it's most needed. Our system has slowly been reworked to criminalize poverty, mental illness and public protest. I can understand the informed of other nations wondering what the hell happened to the USA. I know I do.
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shaky? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is misdirection. Point the citizenry at a different country and warn them about it, so that the citizenry overlook the problems at home. Classic propaganda is to create an external enemy.
The sad part about all of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shaky? (Score:4, Insightful)
Point the citizenry at a different country and warn them about it, so that the citizenry overlook the problems at home. Classic propaganda is to create an external enemy.
This is true, as it speaks to the reason behind the statement. Sadly, this doesn't really speak to the potential truth of the statement itself. Truth can be propaganda, as well as lies.
Judging from my experience with American law enforcement, and "justice", and everything else I've read, this smells a wee bit truthful. It still serves Russia nicely (them being, perhaps, bigger dicks than us), but I still think they might have a valid point. We're not the good guys, by any stretch. We only look out for our own interests, and by "our", I of course mean only our governments, not "our" as in "we the people".
Re:Biased charges, clearly tilted toward convictio (Score:4, Insightful)
North Korea and Nazi Germany are/were military dictatorships. In a military dictatorship, there's no pretense of due process. There is one leader and if you cross them, you suffer the consequences. East Germany was very much a police state, but one could argue that it was under the control of the USSR and not that unique an example.
I think categorically denying that the U.S. is a police state is dangerous. Something very unhealthy is happening in the U.S.. People don't even feel free to talk openly about it anymore. Names are being taken down via social media and citizens are being secretly spied upon without due process. The pretense of due process is still there. Guantanamo is considered "different" and the DHS operates in a space which is also "an exception". The government still feels it needs to explain its actions to the media.
Re: Absolutely the case (Score:5, Insightful)
Where was all this outrage and demand to bomb when the rebels used nerve gas back in May?
Both sides in the Syrian conflict are baddies. It's a bit hypocritical to bomb the Syrian government for using chemical weapons when we ignored the rebels doing the same.
Re: In Soviet Russia.. (Score:2, Insightful)
the irony, of course, is that nobody warns travellers about visiting the USA because we already know that Obama, who's been running the country for years and years, is an "elected president" in name only, and pretty much serves as an unelected, business-sponsored dictator. There is little evidence to suggest that the USA would give anyone a fair trial. ex. Chelsea Manning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning [wikipedia.org]
FTFY
Re:Times have changed. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you but both nations of the cold war were bad guys and they (or their successors in the case of the Soviet Union) still are. Old trick of using external "foes" for control and limiting dissent and its impact. The meaningful major challenge as always is in creating and implementing reforms and making them stick to prevent backsliding to the bad old days.
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
cost cutting is part of the reason, but increasing the conviction rate is a much bigger part, it justifies the system because there's quantifiable "proof" that it's working - they must have been guilty, if they confessed or plead guilty.
it's also useful politically, to make people or organisations seem "tough on crime".
IMO, plea bargaining should be illegal with severe penalties for prosecutors who offer it.
at the very least, the fact that a deal was offered should be enough to reduce all charges and potential sentencing to the offer as a *maximum* - the cops/prosecutor wouldn't have offered it if they thought it was too lenient for the crime.
FWIW, I live in a country where such evil shit either doesn't happen or isn't common enough to be a noticable problem - although cops here (as everywhere) always pile on resist arrest/assault police charges just because they can - it's your word against theirs, and they are presumed to be honest by the courts.
The very thought of a "justice" system where it is considered *normal* to use the threat of insanely harsh penalties to coerce a guilty plea fills me with horror.
but then, our legal system isn't politicised - deliberately so, with clear and jealously guarded separation of powers - and we don't do stupid things like elect senior cops or judges. ours are professionals that work their way up through the ranks, not demagogues - which has problems of its own, but IMO they're nowhere near as bad as the problem of illiterate, incompent, prejudiced morons being elected just because they're popular or good at lying in public.
I remember all the american anti-russian, anti-soviet, anti-communist propaganda from when i was growing up in the 70s and 80s - there isn't a single shitful thing that the evil russians were accused of then that you americans aren't doing - or exceeding - now, and with far greater efficiency due to modern computers and technology.
Re:Times have changed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mobster, businessman... a rose by a different name...
It's not like the US went head over heels to prosecute the criminals that caused the current turmoil in our economy.
Re:Shaky? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since we learned to cover it with so much bull and feelgood words that it doesn't matter anymore. We don't invade countries anymore, we join a peacekeeping mission, and after we won (sorry, after we reestablished peace) we don't occupy it, we establish a military presence in the area. There we don't infiltrate enemy groups and commit worse atrocities against the civilians than they do to convince them we're also some of the "bad guys", so we can ferret out their leaders for assassination, we engage in covert operations where we have to regretfully accept inevitable but necessary drawbacks for the local population, to enable us to identify top terrorists to neutralize them. And we don't do that with carpet bombing from unmanned drones where we fire at the least hunch that there might be someone we want to hit in the area, we launch preemptive strikes against the terrorist strongholds using top of the line equipment to protect the lives of our men and women serving in our military...
Need I go on or do you simply want to watch the News for more drivel like that?
Re:Biased charges, clearly tilted toward convictio (Score:2, Insightful)
That's little different from the imprisonment refugees suffer in places like Germany and Australia. Australia has even set up extraterritorial detention camps in places like Nauru.
Bullshit. I can't speak about Australia, but just today a number of asylum seekers in Germany have gathered in Munich to protest the fact that they are not supposed to leave the administrative district they are housed in. You can think what you will about this rule, but if you believe being legally restricted to an administrative district (note that refugees are not physically prevented from leaving) is in any way comparable to being imprisoned in Gitmo, then you are nuts.
If you are considered a threat to national security, you can be taken off the street in pretty much any nation. The only thing that's unusual about the US is that this didn't use to happen here. And the sooner we return that exceptional status among nations, the better.
In civilized nations, even suspected threats to national security have to be brought before a judge within a short period of time after being arrested (in Germany it is 48 hours), and they cannot be detained for years without being charged for a crime either.
Re:meanwhile, in Russia... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it is not something new, it never was the "land of free". US has been on shit since at least the WWII.
The unnecesary nuclear bombs on Japan, the experiments of effects of plutonium with US patients, support to fascists countries in the 50-70 (Spain, Portugal) to avoid the spread of communism, Vietnam war, possible participation of US in Pinochet coup d'etat and Aldo Moro, italian president assasination. Those are just a few of the things in which the "land of free" was involved in the Cold War. I guess they did better propaganda job back then. That's what have changed.
Re:Times have changed. (Score:5, Insightful)
While there are certainly Russians that should be extradited to the US to stand trial, it's the United States that's abused their extradition powers, falsified evidence, and flat out lied to participating countries in order to arrest those whom there is little to no evidence against and are often being persecuted for political reasons. Remember, we have the highest incarceration rate in, not only the world, but all of human history. With that kind of record you have to see how a lot of countries would see our judicial system as a bit suspect as well. The Russians may protect their ultra rich from prosecution but we do exactly the same thing. To this day, not a single executive from the whole 2008 banking mess has even been indited, simply because the justice department didn't want to upset the markets. We are certainly no better than the Russians when it comes to justice, we're probably even worse.
Re:Biased charges, clearly tilted toward convictio (Score:4, Insightful)
Do US Citizens need to fear the government knocking on the door at midnight?
Yes, actually (you're just one anonymous tip away from having a SWAT team redecorate your home), but they are more scared of being accused of a crime, put on a ter'rist list, investigated for child porn possession, or sued into bankruptcy.
Different tactics, same result.
Were John Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Glenn Beck or Bill Orielly arrested for their blatant attacks of the government?
Those people do not threaten the regime. At best they are largely ignored; at worst, they may effect a slight shift in voting patterns between the Republicrats and the Demopublicans, depending on the political party they happen to rant against, which serves nicely to distract the population from the real issues.
No? Ohh ok. Then once again, I bring up that while not perfect, the US is far from the Totalitarian state some think it is.
You don't need to beat up your slaves if other methods of control are more effective.
The word totalitarian has a meaning. A country working towards gay rights is not a country that it becoming totalitarian.
Yes, it does. Allow me to use the wording from Wikipedia: "Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a term employed by some political scientists to describe a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible."
How exactly "gay rights" interfere with totalitarianism?