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from the we-just-want-to-make-sure-he-gets-a-fair-trial dept.
Lauri Love[*], in the UK, is facing extradition requests from three separate US court districts and a potential 99 year prison sentence for his alleged involvement in the online protests that followed the death of Aaron Swartz. Depsite no evidence offered by the US, the British courts have preliminarily agreed to extradition and his appeal will be on the 28th and 29th of November. Again, no evidence has been presented against him, but if he were tried in the UK he would be facing a maximum of 32 months in prison, not 99 years as the US is aiming for.
[*] According to Wikipedia's entry for Lauri Love:
Lauri Love is a Finnish-British activist charged extraterritorially with stealing data from United States Government computers including the US Army, Missile Defense Agency, and NASA via computer intrusion.
Previously: Lauri Love to be Extradited to the U.S.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday November 28 2017, @05:48PM (5 children)
Lets unpack a little deeper. The information he was looking for was evidence a UFO cover-up. Fairness of trial and sentence may be considered in an extradition. The U.S. has a bad habit of inflating charges and inflating damages and eviscerated the right to an attorney years ago. U.S. prisons are known for sub-standard health care and near non-existent mental health care.
He has likely already suffered enough distress to make sure he won't do it again. The make sure, not extraditing him will most likely mean prosecution in the U.K. with possible prison time there. It seems likely that the legitimate goal of discouraging further infractions has already been met.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 28 2017, @08:47PM (2 children)
They could opt not to extradite him, but in doing so that would make it less likely that the US would extradite any of their wanted for trial as well.
Countries often place restrictions on what kind of sentences can be handed out. For example, sometimes they'll require that the government agree to not seek or use the death penalty in cases of murder in order to get the suspect extradited.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday November 28 2017, @09:37PM
It's going to be hard to get less likely than the practically zero current record. That is, no U.S. citizen who was currently living in the U.S. has ever been extradited under the current treaty.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:12AM
Sometimes? Every time, it's a workaround for the laws against extraditing people to countries with the death penalty. If we were not to require this, or if the US government was to disregard such an agreement, the extradition itself would be against the law, and the people allowing it could be punished even though they did not know the US would disregard the agreement (because the agreement does not technically make the US a country without the death penalty, we only pretend it does).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @03:27AM (1 child)
> He has likely already suffered enough distress to make sure he won't do it again. [...] It seems likely that the legitimate goal of discouraging further infractions has already been met.
That's a legitimate goal in Europe, but it's not the idea under which the USA legal system operates. The USAians are a fairly vengeful bunch. Rehabilitation etc. are completely irrelevant, it's all about maximum possible punishment, without any consideration to proportionality or justice. Further compounded by the private prison system and using prisoners as slave labor (free market ahoy).
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday November 30 2017, @07:33AM
The maximum punishment, slave labor, etc. are nothing like legitimate goals anywhere though they are practiced in the U.S.
That's all the more reason not to extradite.