I guess it depends on whether you want to take an idealist look at this or a realistic one.

Ideally, yes, all citizens of all countries are entitled to protection under their own countries' laws.

Realistically, is it our job to enforce other countries laws? No.

Russia does have a point when they file charges that Americans hacked into Russian systems. Of course, they're filing charges against legitimate law enforcement officials who were investigating known criminals in an attempt to prevent damages to our nation's business infrastructure. But they have a point nonetheless.

So what? Let them file their charges of hacking, and we will agree to be just as forthcoming and cooperative as they were when we filed charges of hacking against their citizens. Let them see if our FBI agents are greedy enough and dumb enough to fly over to Russia to stand trial like the Russia hackers were who came over here.

Two wrongs don't make a right, people are people, and I am for cooperation instead of mutual bratty-ness, but fair is fair. When a hacker in a Russia is suspected of hacking U.S. systems and extorting U.S. businesses, Russia offers little or no assistance. We offer them full cooperation when our citizens are suspected of hacking and extoring Russians. The burden is on them to come up to par, NOT us. Then we can talk about fair cross-border evidence-gathering tactics.

P.S. On a side note: In cyberspace, the political and geographic boundaries in which the hardware sits is only slightly less meaningless than what color the hardware is. Cyberspace is still the Wild West, and the West was not won by enforcing law by the book.



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