Behind the scenes of the Pirate Bay trial

As countries become more corrupted, their "legal" system becomes less about the law and justice, and more an arm of the state to impose its will. I've seen countless examples of this, where the law was ignored, precedent and procedure was ignored, and obviously corrupted officials acted for their best interest in persecuting the people the state had decided needed persecution.

In fact, this tendency is so common, historically, that it is one of the reasons the US had its revolution, and one of the reasons the form of government created in the USA was so different from the rest of the world, at the time. Many protections were enshrined in the US constitution, designed to prevent exactly these abuses.

However, even in the USA, these protections have become meaningless... because at the end of the day all systems rely on people. When all of the people with power in any system are answerable to the state (And the state only) the system quickly becomes merely an agent of the state's interests... and not a defender of the public's interest.

We see this most starkly with the states demonizing of "terrorism" (when in many cases it isn't actually terrorism it is going after)... with its massive power grabs due to the "War on drugs" (after decades of demonizing drugs) ... and now, lately, after "piracy" (with decades of demonizing "pirates".)

Things will continue to get worse in this regard-- because there is no effective force to counter it. US elections, no matter which party wins, put "anti-terrorist" and "anti-drug" and "anti-piracy" people in office.

Note Obama who promised a "softer war on drugs" picked the Architect of the Drug War, Joe Biden as his running mate and his tune immediately changed after getting elected. Bush was no better, etc.

It has been decades since blatently unconstitutional asset-forfieture laws were enacted under Reagan. Further, in those decades we've had uncountable incidents of police outright stealing property under them, never charging someone with a crime.

I can think of nothing more corrupt than, for instance, florida cops stopping tourists to take all their money. (similar incident happened in texas.)

Despite public awareness and many appeals to the courts over the years, this practice is only growing bigger.

So, what is to be done? They're getting away with it, and show no signs of stopping.... and the alleged methods to hold them accountable: The law, the courts, the supreme court, and elections have all failed.

You needed to open the link to see that? The link called Sweden a banana republic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

A banana republic is a politically unstable country that economically depends upon the exports of a limited resource (fruits, minerals), and usually features a society composed of stratified social classes, such as a great, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy, composed of the elites of business, politics, and the military.

Who in their right mind thinks that describes Sweden?

Yeah, it's not like he might have been making a point. Let's just latch on to one word's literal meaning and use that to dismiss the whole article.

Falkvinge is a polarizing figure. He says these things to wake you up and make you think. If a left-wing do-good society such as Sweden can have a court case this perverted then likely in other countries it is even worse.

A charged headline will help in bringing the audience to the content, if 'one look' is all it takes for you to dismiss the data as illegitimate and/or suspicious then perhaps I can allay your worries by stating that he's 100% legit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickard_Falkvinge

I tried to follow the "fact" that the legal counsel was forcibly subjected to DNA registration, and the link went to the Wikipedia entry for the Pirate Bay raid. Which then linked out the reference for that specific "fact" to a blog that no longer exists. And this was the law student's (the referred-to "legal counsel") blog. Not exactly great.

Also the notion that the Judge in this case somehow picked himself and was corrupt to the bone was completely disproven the last time that site made the front-page on HN on the subject (in the comments section of the article - probably deleted later on).