Sorry, I can't support the U.S. government overreaching in any capacity, especially if the reasoning for this is shit fueled by corporate interests rather than common good. He should be tried in the UK, where he's from, and even then copyright infringement is really more of a civil problem than a criminal one. If he was a known terrorist or criminal responsible for crimes against the U.S.? Fine. But no, he's a kid who hosted a website. Being a dick is not against the law; we have rappers that sing "fuck the police" nowadays. It's dumb, but they're not criminals.
There's never a 'this side is right, this side is wrong' deal when it comes to stuff like this, but I normally fall into the party that disapproves of the way governments handle this because they're honestly being a bunch of dicks about it. The punishment should fit the crime, but what they are doing now is the equivalent of taking a thief to the public square and chopping off his hands, screaming "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THIEVES," as a warning to others.
It depends on which party has suffered damages due to O'Dwyer's actions. If it were a case of property relating to the servers, trying him in the UK wouldn't be an issue. But that's not the grievance here. The grievance is damage through infringement, and chances are most of the damages are against American properties. It's well within reason to request extradition.
Copyright infringement of this kind (re: Enabling Theft) is not, and never has been a civil procedure in any court of the Commonwealth or the United States. Were it merely that he was practicing plagiarism, he might be tried in civil proceedings because plagiarism does not always equate actual theft of goods, only of concepts. But what O'Dwyer was doing was enabling theft, compounded by copyright infringement. Therefore it's a criminal trial. Otherwise you'd have to equally grant all cases of assisted theft a civil procedure instead of a criminal one, and the law does not work that way.
They really
aren't being dickish about this at all. There's also no talk of punishment yet. O'Dwyer can even appeal extradition right now. Keep in mind, the UK's hand was
not force in this matter. There does exist an extradition pact between the US and UK, but an independent ruling still has to be made, and by a judge of the country from whom an individual is being extradited.
Why
isn't O'Dwyer being tried in the UK? Because they don't have any laws regarding what he did. The UK is massively behind in terms of internet legislation and has no precedent to try O'Dwyer on. But the United States, Canada, or Australia do, and since damages were most severe to US properties, that's where he goes.
This isn't an abuse of authority dude, it's pretty much due process.
