Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, the Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists, and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet

by David Segal, Patrick Ruffini

  NP: So with no warning, all of a sudden you’re in a UK court fighting extradition.

  JD: Yes. Richard was put straight into a cell at the police station. He was locked up. I had to make my way there and the lawyer said that a barrister would meet me there … I had to be there for 2 and I don’t think the barrister came ‘til about 4. Richard was locked up all this time so I couldn’t have any contact with him.

  NP: I’m guessing your lawyer would have had to scrabble around to find a barrister because he didn’t even know he was going to need one.

  JD: Exactly, yes. While Richard was locked up and I was waiting to go to into this court, loads of people were there waiting for the same purpose, not to go America but to Europe … I went into the court to wait Richard’s turn. They just keep coming in, one after the other … they were all just being processed through … and I was just thinking, oh my God, this is going to happen to Richard next. We didn’t get any information. Nobody gave us a leaflet about what happens if you’re given an extradition warrant. I only knew what I could see going on there. The fact was everybody was getting their extradition requests rubber-stamped.

  When Richard came into the court there was a prosecutor there for America and this barrister that we had. Of course, she knew nothing either. Nobody knew about the case because we didn’t know there was a case. The prosecutors wanted Richard to be kept in prison, so they were arguing for that. It was really terrifying because they were so nasty. Because Richard had got exams the following week, and we’d told all this to the barrister woman. She managed to get bail for Richard, but he had to go in prison overnight because they wanted his passport. We didn’t go to London with a passport, it was here at home, and they wanted some cash as well. Then it was 5 o’clock, and the court was closing. We couldn’t physically get the money and get the passport by 5 o’clock when we didn’t even go into the court until 4, so Richard had to go to Wandsworth Prison. Luckily my sister lives in London so I was able to give her a call. I went to her house and then the next day we got the money and I phoned home and got my partner to get the passport. None of it was straightforward.

  NP: I can imagine; Chesterfield’s one hundred fifty miles away from London.

  JD: You have to take the passport to a local police station, and they have to contact the prison. But the trouble is I was trying to do this at 5 o’clock after Richard had gone off to Wandsworth Prison. They make them sit in a van for hours outside, they take hours to process them into the prison, and until they’re actually processed into the prison and moved onto their computer system, they wouldn’t accept the passport. My partner … he was in Worksop [a town sixteen miles from Chesterfield] at the time, and the police were like, “We don’t know how to do this. We can’t take your passport.” It was just hopeless, the whole thing. But by the next day, we got that sorted, and he was able to come out in the afternoon.

  The other thing was they didn’t know what bail conditions to impose on him. The judge was like, “We’ve got the money, we’ve got the passport, what else can we do to him?” The barrister said we could say that he mustn’t access the Internet, but then the judge was saying he’s got exams the next week, he’s at university, so we can’t do that, can we? And how could we police that anyway, he could just go in an Internet café. So Richard had to tap on the glass, because he was behind this glass wall in the court, to get somebody to come over so that he could make suggestions to them about his bail. He just said, “You could tell me not to access the TV Shack website”—which he’d already taken down anyway—and “You could tell me not to buy any new domain names.” So he chose his own bail restrictions because they didn’t know what to do. It was funny. Well it would have been funny if it hadn’t been so frightening.

  NP: So now he’s back studying at university and you’re fighting extradition, which is just a ridiculous thing because he’s not committed any crime that anyone’s interested in prosecuting him for in the UK, and it’s arguable that he’s committed no crime at all.

  JD: Yes, that’s right. He never went to America. America is claiming jurisdiction over somebody who has never set foot in their country. They don’t allow it to happen to their own citizens. We can’t do it to them. I have a freedom of information request which shows that not one American has ever been extradited to the UK for something that they’d done in America. And the UK has never asked for an extradition of an American for something that they’ve done in America. So it’s mad.

  NP: What’s the process to fight the extradition? And where are you at with it right now?

  JD: Well we’ve just received a date for the appeal in December … the main argument is that Richard’s website operated in the same way as the TV Links website … and the TV Links case was thrown out of court. It was dismissed … it was thrown out because they said that linking to any content is not a crime basically.

  NP: As I understand it, they were claiming the difference with Richard’s case was that he was curating content?

  JD: No, they didn’t say that actually. In fact it was quite a cock up at the court … we had a few hearings where we presented the arguments through October and November of 2011 … in order to be extradited the alleged crime must be a crime in both countries. We were trying to prove that it is not a crime in the UK. If we had won that argument, then Richard couldn’t be extradited. At that court hearing the judge was saying yes, you’ve got a good, strong argument. And so was the prosecutor. We had another hearing booked, because there’s other arguments that you put forward like human rights …

  The next court appearance, the night before we were going to London we got a late submission from the other side. When you get a document through, you have to read it and you’re meant to rebut it, provide a response. But it came to us at something like 7 o’ clock at night; we were going to get on a train at 5 in the morning. Normally we would look at these documents for a week or so and with the solicitor write a response. I was really cross about this … I just sent a bit of a ranty email saying, “Why are we getting this crap? It’s full of inaccuracies. The prosecution clearly don’t have the technical knowledge to understand what it’s all about.”

  The next morning, we got to London, I was still mad about this, because we had to do a very quick response to it. The barrister came and he said, “Oh, I’ve sent your email to the prosecution barrister, and he’s decided not to submit that document.” It was rubbish anyway. We weren’t afraid for him to submit it, just annoyed that it was sent so late. But he’d decided not to [submit it]. Because of that, the barrister said let’s leave it now as we left it last time, which is when the judge said we’ve got a good strong argument. We still had some other material to send in, but he said let’s leave it. I didn’t want to leave it. I wanted to carry on because I wanted it done good and proper, so that they wouldn’t be able to come back. But because he felt that the judge and the prosecutor were agreeing that we had a good argument, he thought we would win it, so we didn’t then submit this extra stuff … but then it all changed. Six weeks later the judge changed his mind. So we have to appeal against that decision, and this is the date that we’re waiting for, the appeal.

  NP: I presume this is all costing an incredible amount of time and money …

  JD: Well Richard has legal aid, because he’s a student, so we don’t have to pay legal costs. We’ve had to pay for a couple of things, like we had a video made to explain to the judge how linking works. Because you get judges who are not technically literate … there’s been the costs associated with traveling up and down to London quite a lot. That’s expensive.

  NP: And I understand that you had to temporarily give up work.

  JD: Yes, I was off work for about six months as soon as this started happening.

  NP: This is so chilling, because what Richard’s done, putting links on a website, if America is successful in this case, the way it could be extrapolated will mean that virtually anyone that’s ever put a website up could be extradited and/or subject
to similar prosecution.

  JD: I’ve checked the American Department of Justice website, I’ve checked ICE’s website, I’ve checked the British Home Office website, they all have links on, and what do they say? We are not responsible for any content on any third party links … which is what Richard said on his website. Because when you go to a link on somebody’s website, you leave that website and go to elsewhere—don’t you? You don’t stay on that website. The content that you link to isn’t on your website. It’s like if you have an email that somebody sends you with a link on, if you click on the link, you get sent somewhere else. It’s not lodging on your email is it? So yes, it’s worrying, isn’t it, certainly?

  NP: Do you have a sense that what you’re fighting isn’t just for Richard? It’s for thousands of people just like Richard, and also for sanity to reign on the Internet.

  JD: I’ve had to educate myself more about the Internet and about extradition law as well. In the course of that I found out all about SOPA and PIPA and all that. So, yes, it is a very important issue isn’t it? And I think you’re right by saying if this is allowed to happen, then there are implications for many others worldwide, and for the Internet. So yeah, it’s very important, but obviously I do have to put Richard first. He’s only a little fish really. I’m sure they’ve got bigger fish to fry than a little lad from Derbyshire.

  NP: The U.S. Government has virtually unlimited resources, so to drag a 22-year-old student through the courts like this, it feels like they’re choosing a test case that they thought would be easy pickings.

  JD: Well this happened when they were doing this big clamp down called “Operation in Our Sites” in America. I only know this now, afterwards … they seized several domain names on that same day, the 29th of November, 2010. After this had all happened, after the police came here, we received through the post documents about the domain name seizure. It wasn’t just a document about Richard’s website, it was a big document where all these other websites were listed as well. It was like a group thing, and it showed the addresses of the owners of all the websites. Richard’s was the only one that had his name and address at the side of it. All of the others had post office box numbers. So in that group, he was easy because they had his name and address, whereas the others, they didn’t. Because Richard did it as a hobby, he wasn’t thinking he needed to conceal anything … if it was criminal, he wouldn’t put his name and address on it, would he?

  NP: It’s also chilling that the website was seized first and questions were asked later. It was seized and shut down without any due process. They wouldn’t do that to a terrestrial business.

  JD: Well he wasn’t running it as a business. It was a hobby. He did make money out of it, but he didn’t set out to make money from it. The ad companies approached him. He didn’t go looking to make money. When the advertising companies, who by the way were American, approached him, he just thought, “Yeah, that will be alright. It will pay for my servers and stuff.” He didn’t think it was going to grow into this massively popular website—that just happened by the fact of how the Internet works and how things spread. He never set out to make money from it at all. So yes, they did, they seized the domain with no due process.

  NP: Basically it would be the equivalent of seizing a shop and all its contents and closing it down without so much as a court hearing, or even a formal mailed warning.

  JD: No warning, no takedown notice. I mean when these documents came … eventually, we got one saying if you want to show any interest in this domain name you’ll have to come over here. He just signed to say he wasn’t interested in it because we obviously didn’t want to go over there. But yes, no warnings, no takedown, just that banner slapped on his domain … No correspondence, no communication about takedowns or anything.

  NP: Again, this is worrying for anyone who run a website anywhere in the world. If you apply the precedent America is attempting to set, other countries could start doing the same with the various other national domains, and any online business that falls in the sights of a government agency can just be taken down without any due process and people’s livelihoods ruined.

  JD: Yes, I mean they have been doing that, haven’t they? I know they have. I’ve been watching. There have been lots of domain seizures and I’ve seen people having to go to court to get their domains back.

  NP: How let down do you feel by the UK government? Because they don’t seem to be standing by their own citizen—which is unconscionable when you consider Richard hasn’t done any crime that any English court is remotely interested in prosecuting.

  JD: Very let down. But I’m not the only one in that position. They’re just following the law that the previous government created. That’s what I’m doing as well, campaigning for that law to be changed … I thought extradition was for fugitives, people who had gone to America, committed a crime, and then ran away. That’s what a fugitive is. Not to go and get somebody who’s never set foot in America, which is what they’re doing. America can do that because the British side of the extradition law allows them to. They protect their own citizens in America; the UK does not. If an American was to be requested to be extradited to this country, they would have the right to a proper hearing and bit of a trial beforehand … the government, they’ve done nothing … there’s a few good MPs who are fighting for reform, and they have been very good. But, historically, nobody wins this fight because the British government and the judiciary have got an obligation to stand by their extradition arrangements with America.

  NP: Which are one-sided.

  JD: Which are lopsided, yes.

  NP: How can people help Richard?

  JD: Well we’ve really had loads of support. Richard keeps out of the way mostly. I just wanted him to make sure that he continued his university courses and that that wasn’t going to be disrupted. He is doing that; he’s on his final year now.

  There’s a few other people in the same position, and people that have been extradited and come back. We’re all working together lobbying the MPs and getting plenty of stories into the media. A friend has launched a fighting fund recently, we’re just trying to get some money together … I have had lots of offers through Twitter from American lawyers who have said don’t worry, there’s loads of people here who would take this case for free. I’m not worried about that, but I am worried about other costs that might appear if we have to go there.

  If you get extradited, you are put straight into a federal prison in America, because they consider that you’re a flight risk—even though they take your passport. You are taken straight to a federal prison and you have to fight then to get bail. And if you haven’t got an address in America, somewhere to live, then you’re not going to get bail. And if you don’t get bail, they leave you there to stew in until they are ready for a trial. Part of the rationale for doing that … well firstly, they’re not ready for a trial, and secondly, they leave you in prison until you get so fed up and want to go home that you agree to a plea bargain. That’s how they resolve ninty-seven percent of their cases in America. Also, if they did grant him bail, they’d want a load of money. So it’s going to be costly enough going to America, because if Richard goes to America I’m going to be going there … I’m just trying to anticipate and plan ahead really … if you fail your appeal, they don’t give you long before they take you. You can be gone within two weeks.

  NP: I cannot imagine what you’ve been through and how much of a shock this must be.

  JD: It was terrifying at the beginning … I’ve got a bit used to it now because I’ve spent the last six months of my life on the Internet finding out more, finding out about copyright law in America, about copyright law in the UK, finding out about the extradition law.

  NP: It’s just staggering, the fact that lobbying by bodies such as the RIAA and MPAA have turned something that would otherwise be a civil matter into a criminal one.

  JD: Yes. They buy what they want, don’t they, from the government, from the law enforcement ag
encies by lobbying and stuff. It’s legalized bribery, isn’t it? And they have got people working for them that used to work for the Department of Justice and vice-versa. It’s all a bit incestuous, that relationship between America’s law enforcement agencies and the MPAA. I’m not saying that people should commit copyright infringement, but that organization, those industries need to move with the times … Richard in one of his Guardian interviews said there’s nothing better than watching a movie at the cinema. He has always been a big cinemagoer. He still is. He was there yesterday. He goes there as often as he can. He loves movies. Yes, he’ll watch movies on his computer, but if he wants to see a movie proper, he’ll go out to cinema like everybody else does.

  NP: People may think that this is never going to affect them, that this is some arcane copyright infringement case. But if they can go after Richard, they can go after anyone with a Wordpress blog. No one is safe.

  JD: That’s right. I mean, what is Richard to them? He’s just a little nobody in England. He’s nothing really. Why pick on him? He’s small fry … It’s not even clear that Richard has broken a law in America. It’s questionable whether he’s broken one in the UK. But you see you just get shipped over there and you have to fight that in a court.

  NP: In effect, it’s guilty until proven innocent.

  JD: That’s the way he’s being treated. Because extradition is another punishment, which is given to you before you’ve even had a chance to go into a court to defend yourself. Putting you and your family through this whole process, and then taking you to America and putting you in jail when you haven’t even been found guilty of anything … and just for something like this. He’s not a murderer or a rapist or terrorist or anything.

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