Below is a section of the French / US extradition treaty which does not allow for French nationals to be Extradited to the USA. I might add that this is a very brave position of the French and they act in the best interests of their citizens.

Article 3. Nationality
1. There is no obligation upon the Requested State to grant the extradition of a person
who is a national of the Requested State, but the executive authority of the United States
shall have the power to surrender a national of the United States if, in its discretion, it deems
it proper to do so. The nationality of the person sought shall be the nationality of that person
at the time the offense was committed.
2. If extradition is refused solely on the basis of the nationality of the person sought,
the Requested State shall, at the request of the Requesting State, submit the case to its authorities
for prosecution.

The French have protected their citizens as other countries have also. So why has the UK and Australia not protected their Citizens from the USA.

The USA has a Plea Bargain rate of about 97% and if you don't make a plea you are told you will be in jail for the maximum time.

They allow hearsay evidence and even allow secret evidence that can't be challenges.

The Jury is directed by a Judge that essentially tells the Jury what conclusion to come to.

The US justice or injustice system may work for the USA but many like the ACLU will disagree. It does not work for the rest of the world.

"The Polanski conundrum - when is pedophilia forgivable?" (Never! only When he might not be a Paedophile.)

The following is the full text of a news item obtained from this link posted to Twitter: http://bit.ly/OeYii






Swiss foreign ministry hit by computer attack



(AFP) – 3 hours ago

GENEVA — Unidentified hackers have penetrated
the Swiss foreign ministry's computer system
to seize data, forcing parts of it to be shut down
for several days, the ministry revealed Monday.

The "professional virus attack" allowed outsiders
to gain access to the computer system to obtain
unspecified information, the ministry said in a statement.

It said the extent of the data mining was unknown.

"Unknown perpetrators used special software
in this attack to reach the ministry's IT infrastructure
and to acquire specific information," the statement said.

Government computer technicians and specialists from
software giant Microsoft discovered the "well hidden"
software on October 22.

"In concrete terms, foreign ministry staff cannot use the Internet
for the time being but can use the internal network,"
spokesman Georg Farago told the Swiss news agency ATS on Monday.

ATS had reported over the weekend that the Swiss Finance Ministry
and Interior Ministry computer systems also suffered problems on Friday,
but it was not immediately clear if these incidents were linked.







The plot seems to be thickening as to who set the ball rolling with respect to the extradition of Polanski, doesn't it? Can't believe the Swiss would have been using M$ software for their Foreign ministry stuff. How utterly naive!

The question that occurs to me is:

Could some sort of spyware have been emplaced in that software whereby other interests, governmental or private, could effectively spy on the Swiss governments internal deliberations?

The French government, to my understanding, uses Mandriva Linux for government IT.




Proprietary software for government use. Dear, dear!

When will they ever learn?

I wonder what it is that 'persons unknown' don't want Swiss foreign ministry staff to be able to see on the internet?