NASA Hacker Wins Right to Extradition Hearing

E5Rebel writes "Gary McKinnon, the UK-based ex-systems administrator accused of conducting the biggest military hack of all time, has won the right to have his case against extradition to the U.S. heard by the House of Lords."

Comments

Rights?

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Here is where we get into some thorny issues. What are rights? Can someone has more rights in one country than another? Is whats fair here fair in in a different country. If we agree that there are differences in rights between people living in one country versus another, than how can we even talk about human rights abuses? I maintain that your rights are as the US constitution would state: God given, meaning in this context they are the same everywhere independent of any countries laws. To believe in universal rights, is to believe in universal wrongs. In this case, he should be tried for his alleged crimes as his potential treatment in the US would not violate his rights ( as they are unlikely to sentence him to the death penalty or Gitmo his ass).

or can anybody defend moral relativism and still support Universal Human Rights? I'd be interested to hear the argument, to say the least.

Re:Rights?

[Corporate Troll]

I'm European and while visiting the US, I made a joke that went way over someones head. That person said that I couldn't say that, and I replied that the US had free speech... That person then replied that as a foreigner I had no rights in the US.

Now, that person may have been joking, but it most certainly didn't look that way when she said that.... The scary thing is that right now, I'm pretty sure that is entirely true.

Re:Plea bargain

[techno-vampire]

Compounding a crime has nothing to do with plea bargaining. In almost all cases, the defendant could be considered to have committed several different crimes, with different penalties. A plea bargain is just a negotiation between the two sides as to which crime the defendant will plead guilty to and how great a penalty will be imposed.

Immunity from prosecution in return for testimony comes closer, of course, but in that case, the benefit is to the public, not to the prosecutor personally.

Re:Plea bargain

[the_womble]

Hmmm... that's a strange thing to criticize... this is a pretty standard practice in US criminal law - cooperate, forfeit your right to a trial, and you get off easy.

Except that the rest of the world regards it as a loathsome practice designed to get someone in jail for something, even when there is a lack of conclusive evidence against them. It is getting criminal convictions through coercion rather than evidence.

Re:Tit for tat

[cycoj]

Secondly, we here in the UK are in a bit of pickle and wish this would go away. See, some crazy Russian murdered another Russian spy in London with some nasty radioactive poison. Pretty serious right? But if we want him to stand trial and be extradited from Russia then we'd have to give them an equally unpleasant mafia boss who is hiding in London that Putin wants. Stalemate. Both countries are hiding behind the skirt of "We don't extradite people to countries where they would face danger or unfair trial"

Actually it is explicitly forbidden by the Russian constitution. I just read up on this, because I thought that almost all states don't extradite their own citizens (Germany has a similar "Artikel" in their constitution). Apparently it is a lot less common in common law countries. So the US, the UK ... do extradite their own citizens. So bottom line the UK are demanding that the Russians break their constitution.

Then the rest of the world isn't very bright

[SIIHP]

Just so I'm clear, in "the rest of the world" there appear to be the choices of go to trial or not. Here there appears to be an additional choice of "take a lesser plea, for the guarantee of a lesser sentence".

Explain to me why that is "loathsome" as it's an additional choice, that is in no way mandatory, and deviates from "the rest of the world" by giving more options for a satisfactory resolution, not less.

Explain to me what is "loathsome" about having the totally voluntary option of avoiding a serious sentence by cooperation, and then explain why not having that option is better.

The only thing "loathsome" is your jingoistic assumption of the superiority of the "rest of the world" and its opinion.