Hacker Lauri Love Wins Extradition Appeal; Won't Be Shipped Off To The US
from the phew dept
We’ve been writing about the saga of Lauri Love for almost four years now. If you don’t recall, he’s the British student who was accused of hacking into various US government systems, and who has been fighting a battle against being extradited to the US for all these years. For those of you old timers, the situation was quite similar to the story of Gary McKinnon, another UK citizen accused of hacking into US government computers, and who fought extradition for years. In McKinnon’s case, he lost his court appeals, but the extradition was eventually blocked by the UK’s Home Secretary… Theresa May.
In the Lauri Love case, the situation went somewhat differently. A court said Love could be extradited and current Home Secretary Amber Rudd was happy to go along with it. But, somewhat surprisingly, an appeals court has overruled the lower court and said Love should not be extradited:
Lawyers for the 32-year-old, who lives in Suffolk, had argued that he should be tried for his alleged crimes in the UK and that he would be at risk of killing himself if sent to the US.
The court accepted both of the main arguments advanced by Love?s lawyers that there was no reason he could not be tried in England and that he might suffer serious damage to his health if he were extradited.
Love may now face a trial in the UK — but that is considered a much better option than being shipped overseas. After the ruling, Love noted that this could impact future cases of individuals in similar circumstances, and the link above quotes some lawyers suggesting that it’s going to be much more difficult for the US to extradite people for computer crimes going forward. Given the ridiculousness of the CFAA and the way that the US treats computer crimes, this is clearly a good thing.
Filed Under: cfaa, computer crimes, extradition, hacking, lauri love, uk, us