
Pirate Bay Founder Arrest Followed By $59m Swedish Aid Package For Cambodia - subsystem
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-arrest-followed-by-59m-swedish-aid-package-for-cambodia-120905/
======
Peer
Am I the only one tired over how TorrentFreak will say anything, related or
not, to try to confirm their bias? This aid was decided on for over 5 months
ago, in march 2012 (<http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/94013>), and it is
obviously not the result of Sweden trying to get at Svartholm. But if you want
to be believe it then please do...

~~~
guelo
I didn't know Sweeden gave money to Cambodia and I am glad that TorrentFreak
informed me of this. Foreign aid from rich to poor countries is used in
general to keep diplomatic cooperation flowing smoothly in matters of interest
to the giver country.

~~~
nixy
It's "Sweden," not "Sweeden." I see a lot of people making that mistake on
HN[1].

[1]
[http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+swe...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+sweeden)

~~~
jesseendahl
Looks like HN strips out the quotes needed to make this query work. Here:
<http://goo.gl/zMUQY>

------
revelation
An aid package of 60 million dollars would be _three times_ the amount they
spent yearly on Cambodia in the last decade (with little variance). See [1].

[1]: <http://www.openaid.se/en/countries/kambodja?year=2012>

~~~
mongol
Except the 60 million dollars are for two years, as described in the article
linked from Torrentfreak.

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-09/05/c_1318292...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-09/05/c_131829212.htm)

~~~
reinhardt
So "only" 150% of the average yearly state expenses instead of 300%. Was there
a point you were trying to make or you're just being pedantic?

~~~
stephengillie
I think the point he's trying to _imply_ (and you're trying to _ignore_ ) is
that Sweden effectively paid Cambodia $20 million to arrest this person.

~~~
reinhardt
I'm not really following your math, the point is that _it's a shit-ton of
money for Cambodia_ , whether we're talking about $60M or $30M per year.

------
nl
This is nonsense.

It is _easy_ to make up a conspiricy, and very hard to disprove it.
Nevertheless...

Sweden's foreign aid policies are well respected internationally[1].

For TorrentFreak to try and imply that aid to Cambodia - one of the poorest
countries in the world - was in any way linked to their coincidental arrest of
a person with an international warrant out for his arrest is shameful.

If nothing else, the foreign aid was announced prior to his arrest[2] and is
part of a long running aid program[3].

Not only is it entirely made up, but it puts an unnecessary taint of
corruption on a program that saves lives. As anyone scanning thread can
attest, the last thing a foreign aid program needs is any kind of association
with corruption - especially one that is made up.

It is well known that shoddy journalists can use their pulpit to smear
anything they want and there is little that the target can do (eg, questions
like "Tell me when you stopped beating your wife"). That is what is going on
here, and people who are falling for it should be ashamed of themselves.

[1] <http://www.thelocal.se/16158/20081205/>

[2] <http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/574/a/94013>

[3] [http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Phnom-
Penh/Devel...](http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Phnom-
Penh/Development-Cooperation/Swedens-Development-Cooperation-with-Cambodia/)

~~~
mistercow
Viewed through Bayesian lens, the problem with this article is pretty obvious.
You could almost define "speculative" as "giving an observation for which the
priors are unclear and only vaguely gestured at".

Here, we have the observation that Sweden gave $60 million foreign aid to
Cambodia, but we are given no clear idea of the prior probability that Sweden
would give this much and at this time (but we are given the _implication_ that
the evidence is significant). We don't need a hard probability estimate (few
of us are actually going to rigorously apply Bayes' rule), but we do need
enough information to come to a basic idea of the probability on our own. What
does Sweden usually give to Cambodia? When is this usually announced? If this
is an unusual amount of money, are there other good explanations for this
besides corruption?

The problem is that the data in the article leaves us to use a relatively
uninformed prior. $60 million is not that much money for a nation with
Sweden's economy. It seems fairly likely that some kind of diplomatic news
mention would happen regarding Sweden and Cambodia within any given two week
period (close enough to appear associated with any given event), and since
Sweden and Cambodia are on friendly terms, that mention is likely to be
positive. Supposing that this is an unusually large amount of aid, there are
plenty of possible reasons that Cambodia, often plagued with both droughts and
floods, might have been hit particularly hard in the last year and needed
more, so even if this is an unusual amount of aid. This all puts the prior for
the observation pretty high, which cuts its evidential weight down very very
low. As you illustrated, that prior gets _higher_ as we add information,
further weakening the evidence.

------
cpach
Here's hoping that some real, investigative journalist (i.e. not someone from
Torrentfreak) will start digging into these events. Currently it's just an
unfounded insinuation.

~~~
mistercow
It doesn't matter who does the investigation, so long as the evidence they
find is reasonably easy to validate.

~~~
cpach
Agreed. It will however take original research, which costs time and money. I
reckon that's a bit of an issue for most blog writers (and of course that
applies for lots of people that write for traditional publications as well).

~~~
whatnottt
This would be a good time for an experienced enough investigating journalist
to set up a Kickstarter project on it. I'd chip in at least..

~~~
cpach
Now that Peer has refuted the gossip[1], perhaps this topic can be considered
settled.

It's an interesting idea though. Some subjects are interesting enough that it
actually might work.

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4480830>

~~~
Uchikoma
I'm on no side, but what did he refute? That no strings were attached? That
noone threatened to hold payments back?

------
staffan
This is not a story.

Sweden have in the past (since 1979) sent aid to Cambodia.

In 2011 we sent 168 million SEK and in 2012 and 2013 we will send 200 million
(a total of 400 million for 2 years) and this was decided a long time ago.

Do you really think Sweden will pay 400 million to get one person back and
have him serve ONE year in prison?

[http://www.swedenabroad.com/sv-SE/Ambassader/Phnom-
Penh/Utve...](http://www.swedenabroad.com/sv-SE/Ambassader/Phnom-
Penh/Utvecklingssamarbete/Sveriges-utvecklingssamarbete-med-Kambodja/)

~~~
Uchikoma
For sure not. But if I'd pay 400M SEK and had a little wish, I'm sure I'd let
the other side know about my wishes.

It's not my argument, but the interesting argument is not that Sweden paid
400M SEK to get a prisoner - that cause and effect are working this way. But
it's interesting that he is arrested after quite some time in Cambodia and
Sweden is paying 400M SEK aid.

------
benologist
It's honestly a shame that TF's propaganda has found a home here on HN.

~~~
Karunamon
That's an interesting use of the word "propaganda".

~~~
benologist
It's quite literally exactly what propaganda is, according to dictionaries,
wikipedia, etc... it doesn't stop being propaganda just because you _like_
what they have to say, that just makes it _successful_ propaganda. Also in the
literal sense.

~~~
Karunamon
It also carries a lot of unspoken subtext, commonly used by opponents of a
position to denigrate the argument without ever responding to it. "Oh it's
just propaganda, it can be ignored"

What exactly is misleading about TF's posting?

~~~
benologist
Propaganda doesn't have to be "misleading", it's pushing the same narrow
viewpoint over and over again to further some agenda. The agenda's called
"making money off ads".

This article's a great example since this money is only a small increase on
the annual aid Sweden has been giving Cambodia _for years_ , as pointed out in
comments.

Or in TorrentFreak speak, "Sweden bribing Cambodia for Pirate Bay arrest since
1979!".

~~~
Karunamon
_Propaganda doesn't have to be "misleading"_

It does according to the dictionary definitions I'm reading. Going by your
definition, any viewpoint can be "propaganda" as long as it's repeated often
enough for an agenda. Civil rights comes to mind, where the agenda is
equality, but you don't hear anyone but far-right wingnuts calling the
repeated insistence that discrimination is wrong propaganda.

It's a loaded term, best avoided.

 _The agenda's called "making money off people who want to believe they're the
hero in this story for pirating X"_

And there's the denigration. That didn't take long.

 _This article's a great example since this money is only a small increase on
the annual aid Sweden has been giving Cambodia for years_

50% is a small increase?!

~~~
benologist
From 189 million SEK in 2009 to 200 million in 2012. _Yawn_.

[http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Phnom-
Penh/Devel...](http://www.swedenabroad.com/en-GB/Embassies/Phnom-
Penh/Development-Cooperation/Swedens-Development-Cooperation-with-Cambodia/)

~~~
Natsu
That seems at odds with the numbers others here have quoted from openaid.se,
but that site gives me nothing but 'Application Error' when I try to figure
out the reason for the disagreement between the two sources and I can't seem
to get a Google cache for that page.

------
mcantelon
Ah, so the folks who were inexplicably sure that it had nothing to do with his
Pirate Bay association were completely wrong.

The good news, I guess, is that Swedish prison will likely be a less heinous
experience.

~~~
chollida1
> Ah, so the folks who were inexplicably sure that it had nothing to do with
> his Pirate Bay association were completely wrong.

I know that was probably an emotional response and the phrase "correlation
does not imply causation" (
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation)
) gets thrown around here alot more than it should but that's a very strong
statement to make.

Is it possible that it's true, yes. Is there evidence that makes it appear
likely, not that I've seen. Maybe there will be more evidence coming up to
help prove the swedes bribed the Cambodians to arrest him, but so far it looks
like its way to soon to say this is definitely what happened.

~~~
mcantelon
Yes, plausible deniability is present... the Swedish may have a soft spot for
Cambodia's challenges. A list of Swedish foreign aid amounts and recipients
would be interesting to compare this $59M with.

~~~
chollida1
as someone else pointed out. The $59M is over 2 years, and the foreign aid was
decided on 6 months previous to this.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4480754>

~~~
mcantelon
Ah. I wonder how long he's been in Cambodia...

------
vannevar
A more interesting question is, who is paying the Swedes, and how? They really
don't have a dog in this fight, so whatever motivation they have, it hasn't
been made public. Yet.

~~~
cpach
Uhm, we do pay taxes here you know :)

As for the motives... IF the arrest of Anakata was a paid job, what other
reasons than keeping good relations with the U.S. do we (or rather, the
Swedish state) need?

~~~
vannevar
A fair statement, but I'm not sure that nebulous 'good relations' are enough
to explain the amount of time and money the Swedish government is pouring into
what would seem, at least from a Swedish perspective, to be petty crime at
best. I suspect there are much more specific gains being had, maybe officially
through some kind of US concessions or accommodations, or unofficially.
Certainly the RIAA and MPAA can open (and close) lucrative doors to Swedish
media, for example.

------
aaron695
It’s sad the trolls seem to have gotten hold of this.

Torrent Freak has not even gone close to saying Sweden has bought him.

When countries give foreign aid, it is often, at least in part, for power
plays.

Japan regularly does this in the pacific islands and uses their support to
continue whaling. To argue the amount of money they give (quite large) is so
they can continue whaling is also ridiculous. In fact most Japanese don’t even
eat whale or care about the issue. It’s mostly political.

Sweden is owed a few favours and it seems they have called one in. The story
here is why they have chosen this as one of them.

~~~
tripzilch
> The story here is why they have chosen this as one of them.

I suppose they would have preferred to obtain Assange, but he wasn't in
Cambodia? ;-)

------
tnuc
Maybe he will get bail and make it to the Ecuador embassy.

~~~
jrockway
In this case, he's actually been convicted of a crime. (Though one
significantly less serious than rape.)

~~~
noarchy
I wonder which would actually net more jail time?

------
norswap
Well at least he was not sold cheaply.

------
rcfox
Is there actually a scandal here? An extradition treaty would allow Sweden to
remove criminals from Cambodia. Just because there is no treaty, that doesn't
mean that Cambodia can't hand criminals over, does it?

------
tripzilch
It would have been nice if TorrentFreak would've quoted a few of the
references made in the discussion here, namely:

1) how much of an increase this is compared to the regular yearly foreign aid
of Sweden to Cambodia (I understand it's 150%, so "just" 20M extra, and that
the yearly foreign aid to Cambodia has very little variance.

2) when this increase was decided upon.

3) since when Svartholm was wanted, and known/expected to flee to Cambodia.

Those answers still don't quite rule out the two events are connected, but it
would definitely make TorrentFreak's article quite a lot more balanced.
Besides, it's easy enough to expose the big entertainment lobbies and their
copyright watchdogs without making things up.

It also shows that HN is better at doing proper journalistic research ;-)

------
alter8
It seems these guys running shady businesses on internet have never heard
about Brazil.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Train_Robbery_%281963%29#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Train_Robbery_%281963%29#Ronnie_Biggs)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Battisti_%28born_1954%29>

------
Kiro
I'm surprised people assume the arrest has anything to do with TPB at all.
It's anakata we're talking about.

------
_of
Since this is such a serious claim, it would be good with an original source.
This site (torrentfreak) is not unbiased.

------
mtgx
I knew this had to be about "foreign aid" somehow.

------
goggles99
Don't aid in the transportation/distribution of stolen goods and you won't be
arrested for it!!!

