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Comment by adrr | Hacker News Reader

If they sold to the US investors they have to abide by US rules. US has a bunch of extradition treaties making it very hard to run from US law enforcement.

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And yet, Edward Snowden still sits outside of US prison.

Obviously the extradition treaties have limits.

Yes, the fairly obvious limit of going somewhere the US doesn't have an extradition treaty with. In Snowden's case: Russia. Which I personally wouldn't be thrilled to do, but the options are limited.

Here's the countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradit...

It's not hard, in theory, but it does rather limit your movements going forward.

There are a good number of grey countries on that map I suspect they would just rendition you from.

Lots of misrepresentation going on here. An extradition treaty merely facilitates things. You can have protections despite a treaty (e.g. France for its own citizens, ever!) and you could still be extradited if there isn’t one (there just isn’t an agreed upon mechanism for how to do it).

Before someone assumes this is a dirty European protectionist trick, the US do not extradite their citizens either.

No, they (rarely) do

Here’s a recent example - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56248558

You’re right, every treaty is a different beast and there are no absolutes. But the general principle is Further, 18 U.S.C. 3181 and 3184 permit the United States to extradite, without regard to the existence of a treaty, persons (other than citizens, nationals or permanent residents of the United States), who have committed crimes of violence against nationals of the United States in foreign countries.

https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-15000-international-extradit...

If the applicable treaty or convention does not obligate the United States to extradite its citizens to a foreign country, the Secretary of State may, nevertheless, order the surrender to that country of a United States citizen whose extradition has been requested by that country if the other requirements of that treaty or convention are met.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3196

Those seem to be the mechanisms to extradite in the absence of a treaty. No point in having laws about treaties because ratified treaties trump the law (is my understanding).

Yeah I think that's a pretty common thing to do. Outside of US and some EU countries, I know Carlos Ghosn is famously hiding in Lebanon where he is a citizen.

Does any country extradite their own citizens?

Most do/will. Unless you have an ironclad constitutional protection against it, there’s an extradition risk for citizens in their own country.

Go to Russia and have a use for the authorities there, or have a lever/debt of gratitude.

I genuinely don't know where Snowden sits on that - I think he serves as a useful demonstration of the power of Russia and the failings of the US, but obviously know nothing.

On the other hand, a failed crypto bro who has taken oligarch money and can't repay it with interest. I think that is going to be the very definition of a "Russian Holiday".

Snowden’s charges had a maximum of 10 years. If he had surrendered and pled, he would be free in America soon. Instead he gets to spend the rest of his life in Russia. That was his choice.

He could have been free - or he could have suffered a 'mishap' in prison. Not that things have ultimately worked out well for him, but I'd understood Russia was merely a stop-over from which he realised there wasn't going to ever be a safe onward option, so he's stuck.

Each year in prison shortens your life expectancy by two years. So he'd be out soon, but very very unhealthy. Better to be in Russia. It's not the worst.

> If they sold to the US investors they have to abide by US rules.

If you look closely at that statement, however, you can see that it's recursive and missing the base case: the rule which says "If they sold to the US investors they have to abide by US rules" is itself a US rule.

Thus the mention of extradition treaties, which mean (to a loose approximation) that other countries agree to let some US rules get enforced on people in their borders.

In Terraform's case, it looks like they're in Singapore. Which the US does indeed have an extradition treaty with.

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