Extraordinary Extradition?

A judge has agreed that Richard O'Dwyer, a young guy who set up a web site that pointed to (but didn't itself host) copyrighted material is to be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

Now I'm no lawyer, but I'm clueless as to how justice is best served by extraditing the guy to face trial abroad. First off, did he actually commit a crime? Sure, his site kept links to copyrighted material, but he didn't copy the material himself. However, he may have unwittingly left himself open to a conspiracy charge. But, any crime he did commit was committed in the UK, not the US. As a UK citizen residing in the UK and subject to UK law, there should be no circumstances where he is liable to be subject to US law unless he committed the crime in the US. Hmm, just where was his website hosted I wonder?

So why are those that want to prosecute him wanting to do it in the US, when there is a perfectly good law in the UK to cover the crime and the crime (if the crime actually covers his activities) was committed in the UK?

Is it because a jury in the US would be less sympathetic to a foreigner in the dock and the chances of a successful prosecution are higher? Is it because he won't be able to mount a successful defence due to the expense? Is the prosecutor's aim to crush any opposition to the charges and establish case law for further future prosecutions?

Talking to people they are astounded that such a minor offence warrants extradition. They understood that extradition would be used in serious cases, such as murder, terrorism and large fraud cases. They are uneasy seeing it being used just as a tool to ensure a successful prosecution. Such malicious extraditions should be resisted by our judiciary, especially when there are adequate laws here.

To my mind Mr O'Dwyer must have had a pretty crap legal team, because surely he should have been able to resist the extradition.

The thing is, if the law is being extended to relatively minor offences, what next? Will we find ourselves being extradited for jaywalking, or unpaid parking tickets in future?

There are a few salient points from this case:


Make sure you chose the servers hosting your website well. If you're hosted on American servers, better prepare for sharing a cell with Bubba if you so much as type anything out of line.


All laws suffer from mission creep. Whatever the original spirit of the law, if the wording of the law allows lawyers to extend it's use, they will do. 


UK law is subservient to any other law in the world. This supposed bastion of justice now bows to its US and European masters. Justice in the UK is now the purview of anyone but the UK public.


I feel less and less like this is my country. Its more like living on the premises of some global conglomorate.

Don't Take Your Eye off the Ball.

One of my pet hates is when people slag off the banks and blame them for the credit crunch.

Why? Because I tell them not to blame the banks, but themselves. Most people don't understand at first, but after I explain, some get it, some unfortunately don't.

When I say they should blame themselves, its because they took their eye off the ball and became disinterested in Politics. Yes I know its a dusty, uninteresting subject, but it IS important.

If people had been paying attention to the huge deficits government had been running, been aware of the huge line of credit it had been using and understood that deregulation of banks was dangerous, we wouldn't be in this mess now, because the politicians would have been pulled up about it years ago.

Instead people though politics uninteresting, dull and not at all relevant to their lives. They couldn't be more wrong.

To me the first step to the recovery of this country and the path to reclaim it from the elite is for people to become aware just how important it is to be aware of what our politicians are up to nationally and locally.

We need to start making people aware of the machinery of politics and how and why it is relevant to their lives, get them interested and involved. Until we do, we're doomed to sail to nowhere on this rudderless ship, controlled by its unaccountable crew.

Countdown to Catastrophe?

Well, the clock has counted in 2012 and I just wonder whether it will mark a new era in Western Civilisation.

In my post about recession I blogged about the UK cutting its cloth according to its ranking in the world, but the same goes for the rest of the highly indebted western countries.

I've actually been impressed by how persuasive our political elite have been in conning investors into conning the public that all is rosy even when its most patently not. I thought the whole house of cards would collapse many months ago. I've been predicting it for the past couple of years and somehow the politicians are able to keep extending their credit, more than likely by raising mandatory retirement ages and therefore making us more productive over our lifetimes and therefore able to secure more capital against our future value (just how close does that come to the definition of slavery I wonder?). However in 2011 the cracks started to show, as we saw politicians lose their jobs, as their economies outstripped the cash cows they could milk. Possibly a trend that will continue for 2012.

But just how much longer can the political elite do the smoke and mirrors act and fool investors that all is rosy, when it most obviously isn't? You see, the West is no longer the powerhouse it once was: that mantle has passed to the second and third world countries, who have not exhausted their natural resources or have huge numbers of cheap labour.

The Euro is faltering mainly because it was a flawed political project rather than a sound financial one, but its also faltering because of uncertainty as to whether the richer European countries can afford to keep it running.

The thing is, what happens when eventually the elite lose their grip and we slide into the abyss? Will the German public blame their politicians or the lazy Greeks for the decimation of their economy and will they demand reparation? Will the Chinese sit idly by as their labour costs rise, making them uncompetitive and India starts to utilise its cheap labour force to overtake them? Will the Chinese retaliate by putting the price up of the rare mineral resources they've been buying up around the world? Will the American public stay quiet as they realise China has bought all the rights to the rare minerals required to produce cheap electronic goods and started to increase prices to anyone but Chinese companies?

In past global conflicts, the English-speaking world has been the bastion of stability, prevailing through two world wars. I'm pretty sure this time around we have neither the resources nor the will to win that we once had. Did I say global conflict? Well, global politicians have been deluding themselves and the public for so long, the consequences have now outstripped mere local issues.

Its interesting that the safest place globally would seem to be South America, as their various bankruptcies have already done the bulk of financial realignment for those countries, plus their various mineral resources are starting to come into play.

Our leaders are too busy attempting to prop up the past rather than planning for the future, making any realignment of power all the more drastic and dangerous.

At some point over the next couple of days I'll review my predictions for 2011, see how I did and make some  new ones for 2012.

Happy New Year Everyone.