CT Blue

It’s truly amazing what the government can do when it sets its mind to it. The Obama Justice Department has made a name for itself by going after internet “pirates”, read: people who Hollywood believes is costing it money.

Richard O’Dwyer, an enterprising 24-year-old college student from northern England, has found himself in the middle of a fierce battle between two of America’s great exports: Hollywood and the Internet.

At issue is a Web site he started that helped visitors find American movies and television shows online. Although the site did not serve up pirated content, American authorities say it provided links to sites that did. The Obama administration is seeking to extradite Mr. O'Dwyer from Britain on criminal charges of copyright infringement. The possible punishment: 10 years in a United States prison.

(via New York Times)

When I was in law school, and I admit it was a different era, it was considered black letter law that a country’s criminal jurisdiction stopped at its borders. That is, it could not punish a person for behavior that violated its laws, if that behavior took place elsewhere. I’m fairly certain that we still hold to that rule in reverse, and that we’re not about to allow other countries to put our citizens in jail for activities performed here and legal here. Apparently, England feels differently, as Mr. O’Dwyer is going to be extradited, if court rulings against him stand up.

But, sleeping under bridges, and all that. The law, I’m sure, would forbid bankers to do as Mr. O’Dwyer has done, secure in the knowledge that they wouldn't do it, but somehow can’t find a way to prosecute them for the criminal behavior that we all know helped bring the economy to its knees. More akin to O'Dwyer’s situation, the law can’t seem to find a way to stop corporations from avoiding their taxes by taking advantage of offshore tax shelters. A British citizen is subject to U.S. copyright law, but somehow it’s impossible to subject American corporations to U.S. tax law, not to mention Republican candidates.

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Seems Karl Rove has been pretty blatantly coordinating with the Romney campaign, secure in the knowledge that no one will do anything about it.

WASHINGTON — Karl Rove was the featured speaker at a previously unreported luncheon held just outside the Mitt Romney campaign’s recent retreat for high-dollar donors, according to three Republican fundraisers who attended the event.

Rove’s luncheon speech did not appear on the retreat’s official agenda because Romney’s campaign didn’t host it. Instead, the event was hosted by Solamere Capital, a private equity firm founded by Tagg Romney, the candidate’s eldest son, and Spencer Zwick, the Romney campaign’s chief fundraiser who is often described as Romney’s “sixth son”.

(via The Huffington Post)

The article goes on to make a fairly damning case that Rove is violating both the spirit and letter of what is now the law (until the Supreme court gets to rule), and includes this paragraph:

“This kind of activity [by Rove] is the last thing the Supreme Court had in mind when it ruled that spending by an outside group had to be ’totally independent’ and ’wholly independent’ from a candidate the group is supporting with expenditures,” Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, said in an interview. “The FEC lives in a pure fantasy world in the way it attempts to define coordinated activities as not being coordinated activities.”

I beg to differ. I’m not sure which Supreme Court ruling Wertheimer is referencing, but it seems pretty clear from Citizens United, and the court’s recent brush off to Montana, that this is precisely the type of activity the court has in mind. The country is now up for sale, and the Supreme Court ordered the auction.

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