Unbalanced

Back in January, I got a bee in my bonnet after hearing about the attempt by the US to extradite Richard O'Dwyer over some tenuous allegations, so I wrote a rather clumsy letter to my local MP.  I did actually receive a response but have not published it on here as it seemed unfair to do so without the MP in question being aware, needless to say, the response was as measured as you would expect.

Things seemed to go relatively quiet (at least, as far as I could see), until today when I started to see tweets by Richard's mother, Julia O'Dwyer, and have seen that - finally - people are starting to take notice, with the cause to #SaveRichard garnering support from the likes of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Labour MP Tom Watson.

My own view is that Richard O'Dwyer is being used as an easy target by the US government, taking advantage of an unbalanced US-UK extradition agreement, in order to make a point.  But what point are they making?  If they are trying to prove that they are fighting copyright crime, wouldn't they make a far better point by taking down those organisations/individuals that actually perform the copyright infringement via their streaming services?  Does taking out the little guy - who has done no more than provide standard links to third party content, akin to any search engine or directory listing - really prove anything more than the equivalent of school-yard bullying, where the bullies pick on the weak because they're too afraid to take on those that are in a position to defend themselves (Google, Microsoft, et al)?

Whilst I cannot ask anybody to side with me based on my own rants and personal opinions, I would ask that you take a look for yourself at the information that is available, reach your own conclusion and, if you are in support of Richard O'Dwyer, please sign the petition to stop him being extradited and make sure you share the petition details with friends, family and followers.

Thank you.


Comments

Anonymous said…
It actually wouldn't even be legal to extradite, unless the courts were somehow corrupted - the extradition act requires Dual Criminality for an extradition to be lawful, yet it appears that no UK law was broken.

The importance of the Dual Criminality requirement shouldn't be understated - without it, we could be extradited to Saudi Arabia for drinking alcohol in the UK....
Bb Major said…
It actually wouldn't even be legal to extradite, unless the courts were somehow corrupted - the extradition act requires Dual Criminality for an extradition to be lawful, yet it appears that no UK law was broken.

The importance of the Dual Criminality requirement shouldn't be understated - without it, we could be extradited to Saudi Arabia for drinking alcohol in the UK....
OddThomas said…
Cheers for highlighting this, it is an important point.

Interestingly, there is a 2006 review of the extradition treaty 1972 (available here), which suggests that things aren't quite so straightforward any more thanks to the Extradition Act 2003 (I've only read the first page or two so far).

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