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Since the last update almost a year ago when Gary won the right to appeal against extradition, the latest news in the Gary Mckinnon saga is that his extradition to the US for trial will be going ahead.
Even with his apparent medical condition of Ass Burgers Asperger’s it seems he will be extradited anyway according to the UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
Let’s hope the US government don’t throw the whole terrorism book at him and he gets charged under computer misuse laws.
Computer hacker Gary McKinnon looks set to face trial in the US after Home Secretary Alan Johnson said there were no grounds to prevent his extradition.
He appeared to have been thrown a lifeline last month when new medical evidence was submitted to Johnson regarded McKinnon’s Asperger’s Syndrome. However, after considering the evidence, Johnson said yesterday that sending McKinnon to the US would not breach his human rights.
“Due to legitimate concerns over Mr McKinnon’s health, we have sought and received assurances from the United States authorities that his needs will be met,” Johnson said.
In an interview with the BBC, McKinnon’s lawyer said his legal team would not give up the fight to prevent McKinnon’s extradition.
It’s fair enough really, I don’t see how the whole Asperger’s thing has anything to do with it. The guy did do something wrong, and he knew it was wrong so it’s not like you can claim insanity.
I just think the whole thing has been totally blown out of proportion, he got into some pretty heavy networks using easily guess passwords.
It’s not like he did some Einstein relative cryptography on US army weapon algorithms.
“We are certainly coming to the end of the road,” said Karen Todner. “We’re just hoping at some point someone sees sense and steps in. All the legal team do know is we cannot give up because in some ways it’s like dealing with a death row case, and we genuinely believe that Gary’s life is at stake here.”
McKinnon’s legal battle dates back to 2001, after he broke into US military computers, including those belonging to NASA, in a bid to prove the US government had knowledge of UFOs.
While he says his actions caused no damage, the US claims he stole 950 passwords, deleted files at a naval base in New Jersey and rendered the military computer networks used following September 11 useless. The US estimates the damage caused by McKinnon at $700,000 (£433,000).
His legal battle has been going for 8 years now, I wonder how much longer it has left to run. I’d say another 1-2 years at minimum.
We’ve been covering it for 3 years already and it’s still nowhere near conclusion.
Either way I wish my fellow brit Gary Mckinnon the best of luck in fighting the behemoth US legal system.
Source: Network World
Niczar says
If I were him, I would get a gun and shoot the policemen who come to arrest me. Sure, he’d get charged for murder (or attempted murder) but he’d risk less in the UK for that than in the US for what he’s currently charged with.
cbrp1r8 says
hell no, they should move him to the U.S. immediately, the brit legal team have been screwing the guy over royally if you ask me. I mean over here, the prison systems are WAY over filled (and these are not only the blue collar regional ones where you go work cutting grass if you want with one guard per bus) and such.
The Federal (bangyaintheass) systems are so overfull with super murderer criminals, rapist and the like that its likely they’ll give him time served and send his ass back to the UK, as it is, and at the worst they’ll put him in blue collar one and then he’ll be there for 6 months tops before they let him go to due to population overflow problems AND his medical conditions which would be a burden to the state (wherever they process him) and so move him back out of the system again to UK.
The system sucks over here its horrible I mean repeat offender peedo’s get released after a few years. Murders less then 7yrs on release, unless you murder a cop or rob banks (money related crimes) then you get life. Murdering a cop over here is like the worst crime ever.
Morgan Storey says
I believe they were saying he would be tried as a terrorist in Gitmo, so he hasn’t been screwed over the UK he has been held back from an unfair trial with insufficient representation.
What he did was a crime, no doubt (his aspergers came in only as a way to stall his deportation). But let the punishment fit the crime, for this kind of script kiddie act I think he has already well and truly served that.
heewa says
well, why you guys keep said hope they won’t charged him for terrorist, is it because he is english, you never know maybe he is terrorist if he was asian guy you would probebly said he is terrorist let him be there and punished
Morgan Storey says
@heewa: I wouldn’t give a rats if he was an Arab, French, or Asian, or any other stereotypical bad guy nationality. Because he is English is inconcequential. He is not part of a terrorist cell, he was a bit of a nut wanting to expose an alien conspiracy, but not a terrorist. He also used methods to access NASA that could and where used by thousands of other people, he even mentioned he could see them when he was logged into systems.
I agree that he comitted a crime, he has admitted it, but lets say, hypothetically you where practising your skills and accidentally used a really simple one, one that you know won’t work on any decent system and use it on a government system and got in, and got caught straight away. Now accused of being a terrorist, no fair trial, and a Jail that is on international soil as it breaches the Genevea convention and is under investigation by amnesty international due to excessive and unusual discipline. How would you feel/react
Realistically, gitmo shouldn’t exist, even the worst multi-mudering villan in the world deserves a just trial and fair regular treatment in Jail, the opposite of gitmo.