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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.'"
Having a trial by jury, then being convicted by them, then going through sentencing, and then having the option of appeal..... that's one thing.
Getting shipped off sans due process to an offshore prison camp for an indeterminate sentence for something you weren't convicted of... that's something else entirely.
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.
Us Brits consider the idea of being extradited to the USA's rape prisons, Gitmo or no Gitmo, to be about on a level as you Yanks regard being extradited to an Iranian prison.
Isn't there something about "cruel and unusual punishment" in your constitution? And the sad thing is that this story is likely to get you guys making rape jokes instead of realising how shitty your country has become. You were once a great nation and you are throwing it all away.
And no, I have no sympathy for this stupid script kiddy kook. But, as Dostoyevsky once wrote, "the degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons".
No they aren't. If they were prisoners of war, then the Geneva Convention would apply. If they were prisoners of war, they would have been released once the war ended (are we still at war with Afghanistan? Didn't think so...)
They're 'unlawful combatants', a new classification invented by the Americans which is roughly synonymous with 'unpersons'.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Sorry, I have to call bullshit on that one.
Unless you call three squares a day and 5 prayer breaks torture.
Sorry, but Amnesty International disagrees with you. OK, maybe I exaggerated, Guantanamo isn't one of the worst prisons in the world. It's one of the worst AMERICAN prisons in the world. According to Amnesty Intl, "Guantánamo Bay has become a symbol of injustice and abuse in the US administration's 'war on terror'. It must be closed down".
There, happy now?
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.
The fact is that it is possible, and the current US laws violate fundamental principles of human rights and justice. Nobody should be extradited to the US while they have the ability to deny a fair and open trial, just like nobody should be extradited to China or North Korea.
There is no "meme" to shoot down. Under the Geneva conventions you are either a combatant (in which case you are entitled to a POW status) or a civilian (in which case the occupying power has another set of obligations towards you). There is no such thing as an "unlawful combatant". That is an invention of the Bush administration and indeed blatantly in violations of the conventions. Under the Conventions, a non-uniformed individual who does not qualify as a combatant, and who is conducting combat operations is simply a civilian criminal to be dealt with using civilian court system.
It is that simple.
There is no such thing as an "unlawful" combatant, who has no rights whatsoever and who is to be shipped to a Gulag. The whole idea is a pathetic admission on the part of the US that it is no longer even pretending to uphold its so-called "ideals" and is simply now engaged in "might is right" approach to building a hegemony.
The fact that the U.S. of A. even has to make such a promise, puts them out of step with regards to the human rights most other 1st world countries take for granted. I'm not saying that people don't get dissappeared in other countries, just that the option isn't official public policy.
I read another article about the guy off that site, and found this bit of information very interesting: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4721183.stm
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Yes they are mere criminals, just as every terrorist was since, pretty much forever, like say when somoene tried to set the Colliseum on fire in Ancient Rome.
This whole idiotic American mindset of "The Commies are coming! Throw away all laws! The Commies are coming! Give up all your rights! The Comm... The Terrorists are coming! ..." is truly infuriorating. Only piss-covered coward idiots, or assholes hell-bent on using those idiot's animalistic fear to get in power, would engage in such "thought".
in addition, full criminal trial protections could compromise investigations and interventions needed to stop future terrorist attacks
Total bullshit. Terrorist attacks can happen everywhere, all the time, anytime, nearly any public place, and there is nothing you, or the DHS, can do about it, short of locking the whole population up, or establishing a 24/7 surveilance of all citizens. Any idiot can get a can of gasoline and a spray gun and march into a mall setting people on fire. Any idiot can rent a truck and drive into a park running hunderds of people over before he can be stopped. Any idiot can get a truck, load it with rocks and slam into an Amtrack train. And so on, ad infinitum! Terrorism is a tactic and there is no way one can win a "war" on a tactic!
And the only reason to claim that "9/11 changed everything" (besides spoiled brats, otherwise known as Americans, believing that the whole universe revolves around their asses and that when terrorism happens everywhere else, that's just sad but normal, but when it happens in the US its the end of the world and all rules have to be thrown out) is to deprive poeples of their rights under a pretense of protecting them from some bogeymen. That is the very same reason Stalin and Hitler have used on their countrymen!
The way to fight terror is courage and cosistency, demonstrating to the terrorists that they cannot affect one's ideals and principles, no matter what they do. But what does Al-Queda get for the cost of 19 pairs of box cutters? Wholesale abandonment of the supposedly most cherished American principles of "habeas corpus", freedom of the press, unreasonable searches, personal liberties and the like in favour of fascist surveilance and arbitrary imprisonment in a Gulag. Osama must be laughing his ass off at such a spineless attitude.
Or do you want to be in the next September 11?
You are far far far more likely to die in a car accident (47,000 deaths a year in the US) then anything like 9/11, which by the way, took 10 years of planning, culminating in the apex of Al-Queda's technology: the $1.25 boxcutters, and that was before your stong, steely eyed, swaggering "protectors" were around to "protect" you from these boogeymen.
Can you name even one person who has been "shipped off sans due process to an offshore prison camp" who wasn't captured in a war zone under arms while not wearing a uniform?
c le/2005/11/13/AR2005111301061.html
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Well, there were the 38 detainess who were released in March 2005 because the US government decided that they were not enemy combatants. None of these people received compensation for unjust imprisonment, and none of them have ever been told why they were arrested.
Or how about "Adel" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Or how about the five Chinese detainees who have been found not to be enemy combatants, but are still sitting in Guantanamo? http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0213/p03s03-usju.ht
The United States has chosen to put those people into jail rather than execute them. That is a favor that the US is doing out of the kindness of its heart. Your welcome.
"Kindness of its heart"? Fuck off. Guantanamo is a fucking embarassment to the USA, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to defend it.
Now, in this case, I don't think anyone is suggesting that this hacker was participating in a war against the U.S. government. If he's extradited, he'll get a trial and probably go to prison if he's convicted, but he's not going to end up in Guantanamo.
Case and point: Jose Padilla
Arrested on US soil. He wasnt charged until Nov 22, 2005. Held for YEARS before he was allowed counsel...
As an American, this crap pisses me off to no end.
No, that's not fitting to the offense at all, but if you know the bear will react that way and you poke the bear in the ribs anyway... that's just stupid. The US enjoys power driven at least in part by fear. If they overlook offenses against them that fear goes away. Do you think the US is going to send that message and give up that power? No, they like being feared and the power that goes with it.
So the important question is, "what should the UK do?" Right now the UK is standing between the bear and the man. Knowing that the Bear might kill the man, and being responsible for his welfare as one of their citizens should they give him to the US? I think they absolutely should not. Until the US adopts reasonable human rights laws in compliance with international agreements why risk handing him over? Just convict him in the UK. If the US wants any extraditions to go forward in the future when there is any doubt about US laws and behaviors then they can fix the bloody problem. Why encourage a country to act like an rabid animal? The UK should seriously consider whether or not they should hand him over. If they do, it should be with guarantees that he will be treated in accord with accepted international humans rights agreements as monitored by an independent third party.