Scales of Inequality
We've written in these pages many times to give examples of individual injustice, where someone is imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for little good reason. We now face something far more systemic, where such miscarriages become the rule rather than the exception, and where they're applied in a grossly disproportionate manner.
No case currently illustrates this better to our community than that of Richard O'Dwyer, a 24-year-old university student from Sheffield, England. Back in 2010, his website (TVShack.net) was taken down by the U.S. government, using one of those takedown banners we've become all too familiar with. The reason? O'Dwyer's site provided links to other sites that allegedly provided access to copyrighted material.
Links, not the material itself. He was not accused of hosting any of this material himself and what he was doing isn't even considered a crime in England. Nevertheless, the site included the warning:
"TV Shack is a simple resource site. All content visible on this site is located at 3rd-party websites. TV Shack is not responsible for any content linked to or referred from these pages."
Such disclaimers are quite common and, ironically enough, you can even find them on pages run by the U.S. government whenever there's a link to an outside page.
What we've just described is bad enough and indicative of the unequal and bullying power that the U.S. government wields in cyberspace. If only that was where it ended.
Not content to simply take a site off the net through their intimidation tactics and because the corporate powers in the United States want it to be known that they write the rules, the authorities have decided to go one step further. They are demanding that O'Dwyer be extradited to the United States to face trial and imprisonment! Perhaps even more astounding is that his own government in the United Kingdom has agreed to do just that.
Now, keep in mind that O'Dwyer didn't visit the United States and break this country's laws. (It's not even clear that this would be considered a crime here, anyway.) There is no serious contention that he committed a crime in the jurisdiction where he lived. The mere thought of a foreign country being able to simply pull someone out of their home and send them on a plane to a distant land to face their version of justice is something the vast majority of people would never consider to be a reality. And yet, here we are.
It should be noted that the treaty signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which allows this is basically a one-way treaty, meaning that United States citizens are protected from having the same thing happen to them. So, here, once again, we see the blatant inequality with which laws and justice are being applied. Imagine the outrage we would feel if any foreign country forced one of our citizens to face trial in their land for something that's not a crime here and which wasn't done on their soil. Why does our government feel that the rules should be any different for anybody else? And why don't we protest this sort of thing as vehemently as we would if it affected our own citizens?
The O'Dwyer case is far from an isolated one.
But, as we said, this is one that those of us in the hacker community should be far more impacted by. Such a case shows that anyone who accesses a U.S.-based computer system without authorization, runs afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, pisses off (((powerful corporations))), or is involved in any number of other potential violations, faces a one-way ticket to the States to answer charges. Even that scenario sounds rosier than it actually is. A foreign citizen who arrives in the United States to face trial isn't going to be allowed to simply walk around and go shopping until the proceedings get underway. They will be imprisoned from the moment they arrive, much like an accused "enemy combatant" would be.
In the States, we've managed to become used to the ill-advised logic that justifies imprisoning foreigners in a U.S. base without trial because they're suspected of fighting against our troops in their own country. Imagining the same scenario in reverse would be practically unthinkable to us. But if we don't, we run the clear risk of elevating ourselves above the rest of the world and living by a completely different set of rules and laws. This sort of thing has happened throughout history, whether through invading forces or divisions of class. It never ends well for those who see privilege as their right. And it always ends at some point.
Selling the idea of bringing supposedly dangerous terrorist types to justice in this manner may not have been too much of a challenge to a terrified public. But when it starts to be applied to everyone else, as it inevitably tends to be, the damage to society and international relations can be irreparable.
With regard to the specifics of the case we're citing, the law in question is known as The Extradition Act 2003, passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and which went into effect in January 2004. Amazingly, the Act doesn't even require evidence to be presented to obtain an extradition. Rather, "reasonable suspicion" is all that is needed.
Richard O'Dwyer is far from the only person to be victimized by this flawed treaty. Many in the hacker world will have heard of the case of Gary McKinnon, accused of hacking into military computers in the United States in 2001 and 2002. His claim was that he was looking for evidence of UFO cover-ups and free energy suppression.
The U.S. government claims he deleted logs and shut down a network of 2000 computers for 24 hours. McKinnon himself admits to leaving an ominous message saying "I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels." Even though the extradition act was passed after these alleged offenses, they are being applied retroactively. Regardless of how one feels about the motivations of McKinnon, surely the only way to handle it can't be to send him to a foreign country where he faces 70 years in prison. If what he did was, in fact, a crime, is the United Kingdom unable to handle prosecuting it themselves? Or would they perhaps not handle it in the same exaggerated manner that the U.S. is known for, thereby not sending the desired message of fear and subservience?
There are a number of other cases involving extradition to the United States that are in the news. Some involve people who worked on websites tied to groups defined by the U.S. as terrorist in nature. Some were involved in financial offenses, such as the NatWest Three, accused of crimes "committed by British citizens living in Britain against a British company based in London." The British government didn't prosecute due to lack of evidence, but that didn't stop the Americans from having them extradited and sentencing them to 37 months in prison, plus time spent waiting for trial.
It's well known that the federal government would love to have WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in their clutches, for no other reason than the embarrassment that was caused by the infamous leaks, and to send a message to anyone who dares to think of whistleblowing. Treaties like this one will make such a wish easily obtainable and anyone who annoys our government will be fair game, regardless of whether or not they actually committed a crime.
As we go to press, reports are being circulated that the governments of the United States and Israel were, unsurprisingly, behind development and release of the (((Stuxnet))) worm that sabotaged the computer systems at Iran's nuclear facilities. In the eyes of the civilized world, this sort of attack is far more serious and easily definable as a crime than any of the above examples. Yet, prosecution and extradition of those responsible will almost certainly never occur. In such a world of inequality and malformed justice, how are people here and abroad seriously expected to ever believe that the system is fair and that it actually serves their interests?