You'd figure the jurisdiction of the civil suit (which Sony has been fighting to have moved to California) would also be the one of the criminal, so the DA in, say, Fresno, would be on alert.

As anyone actually found out if there is any reason why he wouldn't be allowed to leave the country?  I doubt it would have any bearing on his case if that were so, as log as he turns up when required in court then he hasn't really fled anywhere.

Actually, that's not necessarily the case.  Not only has this case not yet conclusively established that CA is the proper venue (and I'll be damned if I can figure out why it should be), but if venue is established in CA based on the Terms of Service it would do the government little good, since the ToS only tries to establish jurisdiction for Sony. 

If venue is established in some other manner, the precedent would also do a hell of a lot to expand the reach of a state's criminal reach, to the point where I have a hard time seeing what exactly is protected by the Constitution.

Edited for poor word choice.

Even Sony is not alleging that he does not have the right to go abroad right now.  It is simply trying to spin that into something sinister.

If he misses his court date I think sony should send kevin bulter to go get him. I know it's off topic but woulden't that be funny.

It's already been debunked yet you people still argue about it.

source

Sony doesn't know what a controller card is?

What kind of HDD Hotz's using that Sony isn't capable to finding the controller card themselves?

Do you expect every employee at Sony to know how every single electronic component works?

For Sony's sake, I would hope that they have enough expertise to figure out how to fix a hard drive, otherwise how in hell are they going to know what to look for on the drive?

maybe the drive was WD or something and they didn't want to screw with the warranty

Really, if that is an excuse, I feel sorry for sony, and would think they would have much better understanding of what they are doing.