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Alleged British Hacker Fears Guantanamo
Magnifico writes "The BBC is reporting that Gary McKinnon, a British man accused of breaking into the U.S. government computer networks, could end up at Guantanamo Bay. His lawyer is fighting his extradition to the United States arguing, 'The US Government wants to extract some kind of species of administrative revenge because he exposed their security systems as weak and helpless as they were.'"
is that his actions are said to have caused $5000 of damage to each PC he connected to, which, coincidentally, is the threshold at which he can be sentenced to a year in prison, which, coincidentally, is the threshold at which he can be extradited.
The US government is gaming the system to get its hands on this guy. That's why it's news.
Funny thing is, I live a half mile from the base he is said to have "disabled" and this is the first I've heard of this story.
You commit a crime, you get punished. He may end up in a US prison (which seems common-sense, since f I commited a fairly major crime in the UK, I'd expect to be in prison there, not here) , but I have my doubts they would send him to Guantanamo, especially since the US did not hint at it.... This revenge stuff is bs. True, he exposed a lot of vunlerability, but if they don't punish him hard, many more will try thinking they can get away with a slap on the wrist. This is just politics warped in the opposite direction. There have been times when people against the Patriot act and other Bush decisions have seemed as bad if not more obnoxious and ignorant then some of the hard-core Bush followers. I don't mean to troll, but it sounds like this article is written by someone wrapped up in the anti-Bush attitude. Balance is hard to find. It's much easier to just choose a side and let them give you a bias then to continue to think on your own, joining a side momentarily when you agree.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Guantanamo Bay was called into being to exploit a juridical loophole in order to hold people without accusation, without legal representation, and without trial for as long as the authorities need to either build a case against them or to clear them. The reason this was done was to get at people considered to be the equivalent of enemy combatants but without a state that you could hold responsible, without a "home front" which would moderate their actions, and which on balance were considered potentially far too dangerous to let walk around free. In other words: for real terrorists who threaten real lives. Not for teens who make a hobby of breaking into poorly protected computers.
What we see now is that laws are stretched a bit to mark anyone from overseas who breaks into a defense computer as a "terrorist" and hence eligible for "terrorist" treatment. Which includes e.g. a lack of legal representation and a 20 year prison sentence (if he's lucky) or a 60 year one if he's unlucky. Which in this case is of course totally out of proportion.
What worries me most is the cries of "he commited a crime and thence should not whine about the time". Nice copy, but more than a bit barbaric when you come to think of it. Punishment should be proportionate to the offense, and people's rights (e.g. to legal counsel and reasonable sentences) should not be set aside simply because the administration currently in power happens to feel like it.
If we seriously consider 20 years of prison as just punishment for the electronic equivalent of breaking and entering on federal property, then why not adopt "Islamic" laws such as cutting of hands for petty theft and stoning for adultery? Those laws were made in and for a medieval society. Don't tell me that the US of A is becoming the appropriate setting for that kind of law.
Osama must be laughing his ass off at such a spineless attitude.
Well spoken!
And I cry for the people of the once Free World.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."