Re: FBI arrests Russian hacker visiting U.S. for alleged DMCA breach
Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> wrote: # # FBI agents have arrested a Russian programmer for giving # away software that removes the restrictions on encrypted # Adobe Acrobat files. "Nuts!"
Ok. That's pretty much my limit. When a foreign national can be arrested for a bit of coding which was developed (I assume) outside the US and never, by his actions (I assume) hit US soil well it really is time for the DMCA to go. I'd be interested in talking to cypherpunks who actually would like to do something activist about eliminating this legislative scourge and hopefully doing something a bit more substantial than EFF or CPSR has been doing on the subject. Is there a legal fund developing for our wayward Russian or an anti-DMCA fund? Am I giving EFF and CPSR a bad rap? Should we be giving them money earmarked exclusively for anti-DMCA activities? Where is the usually outspoken John Gilmore after his landmark essay on the topic? ( http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html ) Where can reverse engineering be conducted in the world anymore without felonies being leveled? Does anyone care? 0x5EECF144 - 3072/1024 E1E1 3903 6880 62BE 7FAC 22BD 080C A545 5EEC F144 ----- Original Message ----- From: <George@Orwellian.Org> To: "A bomb named 'Mike'" <cypherpunks@lne.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 9:28 AM Subject: Re: FBI arrests Russian hacker visiting U.S. for alleged DMCA breach
Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> wrote: # # FBI agents have arrested a Russian programmer for giving # away software that removes the restrictions on encrypted # Adobe Acrobat files.
"Nuts!"
On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Black Unicorn wrote:
When a foreign national can be arrested for a bit of coding which was developed (I assume) outside the US and never, by his actions (I assume) hit US soil well it really is time for the DMCA to go.
On a more general level, is US law to be construed as granting personal jurisdiction over anyone on the US soil, regardless of where the actual crime was committed? I.e., if I do something wrong according to the Code, I'd better stay the hell out of US? Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:decoy@iki.fi, gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
-- On 18 Jul 2001, at 0:55, Sampo Syreeni wrote:
On a more general level, is US law to be construed as granting personal jurisdiction over anyone on the US soil, regardless of where the actual crime was committed? I.e., if I do something wrong according to the Code, I'd better stay the hell out of US?
US law is often construed as encompassing the whole world. US judges tend to believe they can punish anyone anywhere for violating US law. This failing is not limited to the US. The french tend to the same delusion. It is quite difficult for government officials to comprehend the concept of dealing with equals, and often they just do not get it. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 6gSy4Y0z9ue33pDKeFwyzeM5elboNp2slIKTcX4z 4ujXVIoMs+xOSrPo7Igk7A/xMOmINtm/7qMlVAVRH
On Tue, Jul 17, 2001 at 10:18:42AM -0700, Black Unicorn wrote:
When a foreign national can be arrested for a bit of coding which was developed (I assume) outside the US and never, by his actions (I assume) hit US soil well it really is time for the DMCA to go.
Without quibbling with your sentiment, this isn't unique to the DMCA. Holocaust revisionism is a crime in Germany, I understand. If I ran my naziswereswell.com website from the U.S. as a U.S. citizen and made the mistake of traveling to Germany, I could easily be arrested. Let's not even talk about what would happen if Rushdie wanted to visit Iran. Similarly, U.S. law prohibits money laundering. If a known Russian money launderer visited the U.S., he'd likely be arrested. This is unremarkable. That's not even talking about kidnappings by U.S. agents. As for the DMCA, it says: "No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that (does the good stuff)." Nowhere does it limit its scope to Americans. As I wrote in an article in April, all this means is that cutting-edge security conferences will be held overseas, or maybe in Canada.
participants (5)
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Black Unicorn -
Declan McCullagh -
George＠Orwellian.Org -
jamesd＠echeque.com -
Sampo Syreeni