It is “ludicrous” to extradite Richard O’Dwyer to the US over his TVShack website, the president of the Liberal Democrat party said.
O’Dwyer was arrested over his TVShack.net website, which allegedly featured links to pirated content. The site was not hosted on US servers.
Last month, the Home Secretary Theresa May signed an extradition order to send the 23-year-old to the US to stand trial. He has not been charged for any crime in the UK, much like the case of accused hacker Gary McKinnon.
Tim Farron, the president of the Liberal Democrat party, said it was “important to protect artists and copyright,” but said it wasn’t clear who was responsible for any copyright infringment in the case.
“It is ludicrous and the government needs to take a very strong stand on protecting civil liberties,” he told The Guardian.
He called on May to overturn the extradition order, saying there was still time to do so.
Farron’s views were echoed by Conservative MP Dominic Raab, who said O’Dwyer’s site was merely a search engine.
“If what Richard O’Dwyer has done is illegal under UK law, surely many of the other search engines would be guilty too,” he told the paper.
O’Dwyer’s mother has set up an epetition protesting the extradition here.
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