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Gary McKinnon Loses Extradition Appeal
G0rAk writes "The BBC is reporting that hacker Gary McKinnon has lost his High Court appeal against extradition to the United States. The fight is not yet over yet: 'We will certainly be applying for this court to certify a point of law of public importance and to grant leave.' said his lawyer, referring to alleged threats by US authorities. One New Jersey prosecutor apparently has stated that that 'he would fry,' a statement that would be among issues raised when they take they appeal to the House of Lords."
In the UK the CPS decided there wasn't enough evidence to bother pushing for a trial and prior to that he'd been warned he could get community service (help in charity shops, that sort of thing) but then the US manages to extradite him using an agreement they refuse to ratify and with threats of the electric chair being thrown at him (and not in a Balmer sort of way) before the trial even begins. Ye Gods.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Leave it to Zonk to ADD errors whilst editing.
As you could tell if you read the article.
Yeah, I can see why Brits would be upset. This would set a very nasty precedent. I didn't realize that even after all the lies about Iraq, etc, that we are *still* far enough into the U.K. that they'd bend over like this.
There is a war going on for your mind.
... who thinks this is actually a disgrace?
AFAIK, Gary McKinnon is a british citizen (check Wikipedia for this). Why does the UK allow one of its citizen to be extradited to the USA? Why is he not judged and sentenced in the UK?
Does anyone think, for just a millisecond, that the USA would do the same? Extradite one of its own citizen to be tried in the UK?
Where on earth is the outrage? How come a sovereign country, like the UK, is extraditing one of its own citizen -- regardless of his crimes -- to another country to be tried there? This is ridiculous! Can anyone answer that question?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
European countries (well, their governments) are ubelievably hypocritic in this regard. I think it's just because, time after time, they buckle to USA pressure. Not all that long ago, a EU-citizen was extradited to the USA, facing a possible deathsentence (acording to US laws). It is clearly stated, in many national laws, but also as an European law, that NO EU-citizens may be extradited to countruies which implement the death-sentence. Luckily, there are only a hanful of barbaric states left who do such a thing, such as china and N.-Korea, etc. Even fewer countries which claim to be democratic still practise it, such as...the USA.
But, what did they do? The govenments made a deal, where the USA 'promised' they wouldn't actually deal out the capital punishment to that citizen. That was *before* any sentence on guilt or lack thereof was made. Actually, this should anger americans as much, because this means their government arbitrarily decided to NOT treat a person who (alledgely) commited crimes on USA soil according to their own law, and that that EU-person got an illegal advantage which no ordinary US citizen gets.
For me, however, the anger comes at the fact they *did* extradite him to the USA, clearly in violation of the rules and laws of that country and the EU. If the USA wanted him so badly, they could abolish the death penalty. speaking of which, if I'm not mistaken, some more progressive non-bible-belt states in the USA already have forbidden such practises, as any civilised society would do. Or does it ultimately remain a federal decision? Maybe some US slashdotters can fill me in on this.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Don't try to gain unauthorized access into the freaking Department of Defense network, and then basically admit to it.
For a smart guy, he's rather stupid.
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
From TFA
...has always maintained that he was motivated by curiosity and that he only managed to get into the networks because of lax security.
So by that rationale, if I can kick in your front door to get into your house, is it your fault for not having a better door lock/frame?
This is no surprise really. Sadly, Britain has become another state of the US and a bitch that bends over at every available opportunity when the US government asks, and people like Blair and John Reid have been happy to go along with it. The favours are not returned, needless to say (witness the current Iran hostage problem).
The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) have even stated that there is insufficient evidence to go ahead with a prosecution, but as soon as the US steps in (using some very murky agreement related to terrorism the last I looked) the seas (or should I say, the legs) part. If there are grounds for deportation then fine, but sadly, if this guy had sneezed he would have been on the next plane if the US asked.
As a British person I find all this humiliating to see, and quite frankly, treacherous now. I'm not having a go at the US or Americans here. This is a British problem, and one related to standing up for itself, self respect and knowing what its own self interests are. The US are merely looking out for theirs.
"I found a list of officers' names," he claims, "under the heading 'Non-Terrestrial Officers'."
"Non-Terrestrial Officers?" I say.
"Yeah, I looked it up," says Gary, "and it's nowhere. It doesn't mean little green men. What I think it means is not earth-based. I found a list of 'fleet-to-fleet transfers', and a list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren't US navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off-planet."
"The Americans have a secret spaceship?" I ask.
"That's what this trickle of evidence has led me to believe."
"Some kind of other Mir that nobody knows about?"
"I guess so," says Gary.
"What were the ship names?"
"I can't remember," says Gary. "I was smoking a lot of dope at the time. Not good for the intellect."
I've been watching this story for some time now. As an American living in Europe, and as a forensic psychiatrist, I really feel sorry for this guy. I know how they treat prisoners at home as I've worked with them, and I know how they treat them over here as I work with them now. If he gets shipped over to the States, he will have his human rights violated. Being a high-profile prisoner, they'll never let him serve any part of his prison term in the UK and his family will never be able to visit him. Basically, he'll never see the light of day again. With all the threats made against Gary, especially what this idiot in New Jersey said, and with all of his supporters, I don't see why he hasn't won his fight against extradition. It must have to do with politics. America has to be putting significant pressure on the British government to make this one go their way. We, unfortunately, would never see these reasons reported in any newspaper thus we can only speculate.
He's never said that he didn't do what he's accused of, and he's always said that he only did it out of curiosity. He didn't even steal anything, let alone national secrets. It's really a shame that he didn't pick a target somewhere within Europe to satisfy his curiosity. They would have been a little more lenient and his subsequent time in prison could actually be bearable. After all, why should he go to prison? He's already very sorry that he did such a thing, he's beginning to fall ill because of the immense stress and feeling of impending doom of getting extradited, and prison is not only about punishment, it's about rehabilitation.
Wikipedia says The US estimates claim the costs of tracking and correcting the problems he allegedly caused were around 700,000 USD. It then goes on to say that he hacked the government websites with a Perl script, and found default passwords on their "secure" network. Good think McKinnon found them before China did. (Or did he?)
Maybe they should treat him as a $700K security consultant.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
And Texas was only reluctantly admitted to the US, something that both Texans and the rest of the US are equally proud of :)
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
How about this scenario? I show up at your house while you're at work. You're locks aren't strong enough to keep me out. Your windows aren't bullet proof. Your walls aren't made out of titanium. Now, since I'm well equipped for this sort of thing - complete set of lock picks, bricks for smashing widows, and a saws all to just cut holes in the walls, I'll just break into your house, go poking around "because I'm curious" and "your security is lax". Now imagine for a moment you come home to find the mess that I've made of your domicile? Are you going to be happy? What about the time and expense it takes to clean all that up and repair your house?
I think his punishment should be working until he's paid back every penny of the expense of cleaning up his little intrusions. If it were in my hands, he'd be making restitution and not serving time in the traditional sense.
2 cents,
QueenB
HDGary secures my bank
The US and Mexico fought over who would get Texas.
Santa Ana won the battle of the Alamo and the US got Texas.
"Okay, you just bought yourself a 317: Pointing out police stupidity." - Chief Wiggum
America will throw the book at McKinnon because they are embarassed of their lax security practises on such high profile systems. They will make an example of McKinnon because he used little more than a brute force 2-line PERL script to bombard many desktops with obvious passwords (e.g., "password" or "" [blank]).
America is even more ashamed of this security breach because the many same systems were infiltrated by Mathew Bevan using the exact same tactics over 10 years prior. That's right - these government and military and NASA computers have had no password policy after 10 years and 2 break-ins. Adding the number 1 to the end of these passwords would have stopped McKinnon dead in his tracks.
McKinnon is not a sophisticated programmer or cracker. He simply challenged seemingly high security systems with very low-tech kludgey scripts to see what would happen. He got lucky, then he got audacious, and then he got careless.
Get ready for another Mitnick-scale high profile court case on this one. McKinnon won't fry, but he won't see the sun for quite some time.
You insensitive clod! I'm writing this from the local prison and let me tell you what a hellhole English prisons have become. My lattes have been growing ever more tepid, the prisoner ration of fifteen cuban maidens a month has been reduced to twelve and the prison bar doesn't even serve the Chateau Laffite '73 any more. Not since those E Wing Philistines had their way. Barbarians, to a man. I mean I've spoken to the maitre'd about it but what will he do? I'll tell you what he'll do. He'll just shrug in that gallic way Pierre has and reply, "Oh, monseiur prisoner #297848, don't be so silly, non? The '71 is a far superior wine in almost every way. Can't you feel the French sun in every sip?"
And you call this cushy. I'm supposed to live with fraudsters, ne-er-do-wells and malefactors who consider the easy charms of a '71 preferable to the more challenging '73?
You, sir, are worse than Hitler.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
"Gimme a break. Do you really think that any court in America would give this punk the death penalty?"
I don't think it does matter. The thing is that USA applies death penalty. That should be enough for any civilized country not to maintain an extradition treaty with such a country.
"And even in states that have capital punishment, in the vast majority of murder cases, prosecutors rarely go after the death penalty."
Just 1057 times in 2006 only.