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Yes and no, and I used "generally" for good reason.

While the DoJ's often-obnoxious international behavior gets plenty of attention, the "how much does this matter to the US?" threshold for them to get involved rises sharply beyond the US border. And the legal basis for their involvement (Boeing does have lawyers, to argue the details in court) often changes, too.

OR - if a small-time, local crook is robbing US banks, how likely is the DoJ to get involved? (Hint: Answer includes "FBI".) Vs. how many small-time, local bank robbers is the DoJ chasing in Canada? Poland? Thailand?

The US also has the Alien Tort Act from 1789 [0] (one of our oldest acts) that gives Federal Courts jurisdiction in violations of law abroad.

It de facto allow foreign nationals to sue parties with sufficient ties to the US (most black money ends up in the US in some way) in Federal Courts for human rights violations committed outside the United States

We also have the Magnitsky Act that allows US sanctions on foreign politicians found to have been corrupt (and it's named after the accountant who Jamison Firestone hired to manage his Russian business and who was assassinated for his investigations into corruption and malfeasance)

There are a slew of additional laws, acts, and precedents that allow the DoJ to step in (or allow foreign nationals to push the DoJ to step in) if bad practices arise.

Unsurprisingly, both China and Russia have been very vocally opposed to both acts, as it makes laundering ill gotten gains much harder.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Tort_Statute

it was worse than just a quick assassination... he was arrested and sent to a horrible russian jail where he was tortured repeatedly and then withheld from medical treatment for a period of time until he died.

True! I was trying to keep a neutralish tone.

The distinction here seems to be going the other way: the DOJ is investigating a domestic entity over its domestic activities, even though the most serious consequences of that activity occurred overseas. If it does decide to proceed, it seems unlikely that it will have occasion to seek extradition of the major targets (or, if it did, that it could reasonably be seen as an abuse of extradition.)

Even though the crashes happened outside the US, the malicious actions around the engineering of those planes happened on US soil.

>Ukrainians getting extradited to the US for running torrent websites in Ukraine

Source?

>a law being on the books allowing the army to invade any place that held American war criminals (like the Hague and the courts there) and on and on and on.

Seems reasonable, considering they don't recognize such organizations. If they held Americans for crimes, it'd basically be kidnapping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KickassTorrents#Arrest_of_the_...

In practical terms, America's policy is that might makes right - an attractive policy, when you've got the might.

Extradition is essentially a one-way affair: Ukrainian Artem Vaulin runs a torrent website hosted in Ukraine? Arrest and extradition at America's demand. An American like Anne Sacoolas kills someone in the UK by negligent driving? No extradition.

Anne Sacoolas is somewhat more nuanced than that, mostly because Diplomatic Immunity is a strange necessity for functional alliances.

The underlying gist is that people important to the government or possessing sensitive knowledge are immune to prosecution from allies to prevent prosecution being a viable method of coercing information from government officials. Ie the US cannot charge a UK ambassador, because that ambassador may be tempted to leak secrets in exchange for leniency.

The same typically goes for family members for the same reason.

In this case Sacoolas had done undercover work for the CIA at some point, so likely had knowledge the State Department did not want leaked. Her husband was active in the CIA and likely also had similar knowledge.

The same is true in reverse. You can look up the court cases, the US has had to drop several cases due to diplomatic immunity.

There is an element of might makes right to diplomatic immunity because there is no real higher power to enforce it. If a country is willing to weather the political fallout (and reciprocal loss of diplomatic immunity), potential hostile action, and can get their hands on the perpetrator, they’re free to ignore diplomatic immunity.

In practice, diplomatic immunity is almost always respected, even when it could probably be ignored, because of onlookers. If the US ignores eg Kenya’s diplomatic immunity (who they can likely afford to piss off), it might worry the UK who the US does not want to piss off.

Diplomatic immunity is very, very rarely ignored, but is waived with some regularity. The US is particularly liberal with granting diplomatic immunity, though, and more reluctant to waive it than most countries.

There were a lot of questions about whether Sacoolas had actually had diplomatic immunity, due to not being a diplomat and not having the paperwork a normal diplomat would have. Although perhaps it's to be expected that spies' paperwork would be irregular. There was also a claim that Sacoolas had some sort of secret diplomatic immunity under a secret treaty. Some reports claimed US spies had diplomatic immunity only while on the military base, while their families had immunity even while off base, implying Sacoolas would have immunity unless she was a CIA employee. Which she was at the time, according to some reports. Or was she merely a former CIA employee? Understandably, the CIA is not in the business of confirming such matters.

I agree with you that there is nuance involved.

I would say the precise nuance is irrelevant. Whether Sacoolas had immunity in theory is unimportant - only that she had immunity in practice.

Sacoolas pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving in 2022. She did not have diplomatic immunity.

Sort of. My understanding is that the UK decided she did not have immunity, but the US disagreed and refused to extradite her.

Then she agreed to voluntarily appear (virtually) and plead guilty, but was given a suspended sentence because the judge noted there was no way to enforce any actual punishment.

So you’re right, though it played out basically the same way it would have if she was immune. The UK was never actually able to punish her, but they do technically get to say she was found guilty.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KickassTorrents#Arrest_of_the_...

He tried to get his case dismissed on the basis that he wasn't in the US, and that motion was dismissed by a judge[1]. The reasoning given was that even though he was situated in Ukraine, he was doing crimes in the US by abetting Americans in copyright infringement. This seems somewhat reasonable to me. If a Ukrainian was hacking American computer networks from Ukraine, should he also be immune from US prosecution?

[1] https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-vaulin

> The reasoning given was that even though he was situated in Ukraine, he was doing crimes in the US by abetting Americans in copyright infringement. This seems somewhat reasonable to me. If a Ukrainian was hacking American computer networks from Ukraine, should he also be immune from US prosecution?

But he wasn't actively doing anything to Americans or American networks like hacking. He was hosting a website where people, including Americans, could post links, and use links to download pirated content. The fact that Americans broke their country's laws is a crime they committed, not him.

The judge's reasoning would imply that anything that happens online where Americans could access it and is criminal in the US automatically becomes a crime that happened in the US, which is crazy and total bullshit. Why isn't the US extraditing Hungarian porn actors and porn companies for showing online where Americans can see it exhibitionist porn which would be illegal in many places in the US?

It's a ridiculous case.

But you can bet that if France tries to extradite someone posting antisemitic bullshit on X related to France (e.g. about the recent desecration of the Shoah memorial), US courts will refuse extradition.

I think you need more solid examples.

> Arrest and extradition at America's demand.

Was he extradited? The article you linked to suggests not.

> Anne Sacoolas kills someone in the UK by negligent driving? No extradition. This article says: "Sacoolas admitted causing death by careless driving, which carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said Sacoolas' actions were "not far short of deliberately dangerous driving," but she reduced the penalty because of Sacoolas' guilty plea and previous good character."

Which seems to suggest you should blame a UK judge for letting Sacoolas go free, no?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harry-dunn-uk-anne-sacoolas-sus...

Sacoolas went free because she fled the country immediately after the accident, while making specious claims of diplomatic immunity.

By the time it got to trial, Sacoolas was already beyond the reach of law. The only decision the judge faced was whether to further the controversy or brush it under the rug.

Artem Vaulin and friends from Kickass Torrents.

> Seems reasonable, considering they don't recognize such organizations. If they held Americans for crimes, it'd basically be kidnapping.

So if an American is detained in Germany for a crime committed there, that's kidnapping and the US can invade Germany? I'm sure you realise how delusional that is.

So you understand that there is a jurisdictional distinction between domestic and foreign. Good, so do they. That's what they're talking about.

It's still an important distinction. Your list of things doesn't seem relevant to that at all.

If the US Department of Justice thinks it has jurisdiction over Ukrainian torrent websites hosting links to American-produced media content, why wouldn't it have jurisdiction over American-produced planes killing people in Indonesia and Ethiopia from negligent design and manufacturing, both of which happened in the US?

It would and should have jurisdiction over both, you’re right.

There are these things called extradition treaties.

Which apply to crimes committed in the country asking for extradition.

E.g. Artem Vaulin didn't commit crimes in the US by running a torrent website from his home in Ukraine, yet he was extradited and sued by a court in Illinois, instead of a court in Ukraine where his alleged crimes took place.

Random guys kidnapped by the CIA didn't commit crimes in the US either.

both can be true: The US is extremely aggresive in "protecting" internal interests internationally and lax at punishing its own for international crimes.