I'm not a lawyer, but in that case I think it would come down to a failed extradition process. Although it does depend on the nature of the crime.maudibe wrote:Well U.E. - you seem to have that one well scoped.
I am not in disagreement with the need to sort such crime out, I am just (still) unsettled by the axeman.
The whole thing about data on servers for example… where do you draw the line?
For example, if data was stored in say Berlin by a business who operates perfectly legally (for europe) but then has its data temporarily transferred to a server stateside….. it then is liable to US prosecution?
Let's say a FIFA official from Colombia meets up with an official from Qatar at a World Cup game in South Africa and verbally agrees to vote for Qatar to hold the 2022 World Cup in exchange for some money. The Colombian official then goes back home and uses an American bank to send money to Qatar. At some point in the future, in Switzerland, the Columbian votes for Qatar.
Where did the crime take place. Whose laws apply?
It's partly this problem that has allowed FIFA to get away with such blatant racketeering - nobody saw it as their problem, even though everybody who follows football knew perfectly well that the problem existed. There's simply no honest way that Qatar could have ended up hosting a World Cup.
The "data" in question in this case is information from bank accounts. And while I don't like "Big Brother" any more than you do, I'm not actually bothered about the government checking my bank account for illegal activity - because there isn't any. In fact, it is those places in the world which don't allow the authorities to see what goes on in bank accounts (i.e. the "tax havens" and Switzwerland) which harbour most of the worlds dirty money. It's that lack of transparency which allows all the tax evasion and allows major criminals to store their ill-gotten gains.
And actually, in this case, most of the evidence gathered by the FBI was the result of using Chuck Blazer to trap people. Blazer was a US FIFA official, and it was him that the FBI initially started investigating, a long time ago. When they had enough evidence to prosecute him for taking bribes, they offered him a deal: sing like a canary, and allow us to wire you up, or spend the next 20 years in a cage. He took the deal, and secretly recorded the main evidence that has now been used to get the next 14 of them. And I'd be willing to bet they are now pulling the same trick again, which is why Blatter has at long last resigned. Right now the beans are being spilled by those who have just been arrested, as they plea bargain for less time behind bars in return for evidence to put Blatter away.
I'm guessing you aren't a football person. It is no secret that I despise the US, and I'm as worried about their snooping activities as you are, but FIFA was rotten through and through and this is long overdue.
