[DanBC]

> extradition treaties are reciprocal, no country is going to extradite its citizens if the other country won't extradite theirs in return.

That's not quite accurate.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16041824

> A critical test set out in the treaty is that the British request must include "such information as would provide a reasonable basis to believe that the person sought committed the offence for which extradition is requested."

> This requirement does not apply to requests submitted by the US to the UK

[blastrat]

thanks for that, interesting article! but your quotes are a little selective and tell only one side of the story of that more nuanced article, I think leaving a deep misimpression for readers here on HN.

another quote from the article says "a Home Office-commissioned independent review...found the US had not refused any extradition requests since the treaty came into force. A total of seven US requests were refused by the UK in that time."

that asymmetry in the treaty is not the result of a disparity of negotiating power nor clearly unfair-to-one-side. It's because the US has "untreatyable" constitutional rights that UK does not grant its own subjects, so for due process to grant an extradition request, the UK must submit that evidence. Since the US and UK are such close allies, that treaty may reflect the UK's desire not to slow down the process in either direction. Perhaps (this is pure speculation, we don't have the data) if the US complied in the other direction as the UK does, the UK courts would grant more of the extradition requests.

I'm not meaning to argue that the asymmetry works out fairly for every single defendant, clearly individuals will suffer more in one direction than the other, I'm saying that "the People" on both sides are not necessarily disadvantaged if we "presume evidence of guilt" and a symmetric desire to punish.

and this is for another topic, but the presumption of guilt is how the system is designed to work, otherwise, how could they even compel you to show up in court, or hold an axe murderer while awaiting trial? the commonly quoted "presumption of innocence" applies when you are in court in front of judge and jury; the entire rest of the system from arrest thru the trial is based on a necessary presumption of high probability of guilt.

[pbhjpbhj]

>"if the US complied in the other direction as the UK does, the UK courts would grant more of the extradition requests." //

You seem to have put a lot of weight on the numbers here. Do you know the total number of requests on both sides? Without that we can't really ascribe meaning to the refusal of 7 requests by the UK.

Even then we don't know if, for example, the UK seek tacit agreement before entering a request, which would account for no official refusals by the USA.

All I really know that's pertinent is there was an extradition of a young website operator who hadn't broken UK law (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer) and had never left the UK, not even was hosting content in the USA - any cases like that happen in the USA?

[blastrat]

for various historical reasons, the US economy is among the largest, "most advanced" (not referring to products, but to services, financial markets, meta-stuff), and "most global" economies in the world. The US is among the most important trading partners for most other countries, most countries that export wish to export here.

In order to trade, you need to sign treaties, and that's not even including bi-directional extradition treaties that most countries are also willing to sign.

So yes, a young website operator in the UK got caught up in the web (spiderweb, not world-wide-web) of treaties that are meant to allow for largescale trade of goods including intellectual property consisting of popular entertainments that are owned by giant bloodsucking megacompanies.

Definitely sucks to be him; but Aaron Swartz, Kim dotcom, Napster... these all came before, and I doubt the kid "didn't know what he was doing". Kids lack the capacity to make good judgments about what they are doing even with knowledge, and many people benefit in small ways that seem harmless from downloading content so they sympathize with him, but you are leaving out the part where most teenagers don't manage to get caught up in these legal entanglements from activities conducted on such a large scale. Maybe there is something exceptional about his overachieving on the scale of "these stupid rules don't apply to me, I'm the gingerbread man"

I just read the story in the news this week about the Taliban taking advantage to the "tradition" of "boy play" in Afghanistan (essentially cops molesting children) to train boys to assassinate cops. Thinking about how much of the world lives in those types of culture, I just don't feel the need to shed a tear or rail against the extradition of criminals between civilized countries.

I call him a criminal because he is a criminal; at the same time and same probably as you, I also would like to see legalization or decriminalization or deregulating of many of the things the bloodsuckers make money from, but I don't find myself going to jail while I wait, nor do most people. I also don't litter even though it would sometimes be convenient for me to do so.

People who flout rules are not generally altruists, and I don't think he is an altruist.