Slashdot Mirror
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."
I'm not even sure if the House of Lords will even be interested in hearing the case.
My sig is permanently on strike.
Your comment just reminded me of a comic strip.
Secretary (undercover alien working for the CIA): Would either of you care for more coffee?
Agent Wolf: You didn't fertilize it with alien mind control spores, did you?
Secretary: For the last time, agent Wolf, I AM NOT AN ALIEN.
Agent Wolf: YOU HAVE A TAIL!!!
Their boss: Agent Wolf, that's enough! Or do you want to be sent to sensitivity training again?
Agent Wolf: No, sir.
How do they figure £475,000 worth of damage? I don't know much about the case (or really anything of it) but did he actually do harmful damage to the crap he hacked into...or is it potential damage? I can never trust half the money numbers people throw around these days.
Well, it needs saying so someone better had. Firstly the guy is an unhinged twunt who got high on too much weed and went looking for "UFO evidence". :)
Ergo, he represents absolutely ZERO threat to the security of any group (unless of course you guys actually DO have those UFOs hidden
So basically he's being punished because he embarrased a US institution that should know better about computer security.
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"
Problem: The USA is a country that tortures prisoners and disappears people to secret prisons and we know this because the UN has condemned it as a human rights abuser. We have a serious crediblity problem if this guy goes to the USA.
I see a deal.
Let's say, we give this dangerous hacker to the USA and they promise he'll get a fair trial In return and we'll take George W Bush for the multiple war crimes he's indited with to the International Crimial Court at the Haugue (and promise he will get a fair trial) and let's call it quits huh?
He allegendly downloaded at 1266 files * $750 per file * approx 0.5 GBP per $ = approx GBP 475k
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I read "Nasa Hacker" as a talented programmer employed by NASA. Isn't this place nerdy enough not to fall into calling crackers hackers?
For some reason, I thought rights were something you have, not something you earn.
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.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
(...and if not, we'll just grab him and stash him someplace, forever.)
is not the same thing as the House of Lords. The Law Lords is the highest court in the British Commonwealth.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
You know why people starve in Africa? It's cause they have like 30 children.
I think, generally speaking, when you have a vast impoverished region, it has more to do with horribly corrupt governments, and not so much to do with having "like 30 children". From what I understand, families in highly impoverished areas with high mortality rates do tend to have a lot of children, with the hope that some of them will actually survive, and maybe even prosper, but I would suggest that's more an effect of poverty rather than a cause of it. The reason that average American doesn't have tons of children isn't because we're smarter than the rest of the world, it's because all of our children have a reasonably good chance at survival, and a good chance at a comfortable life. Their chances at success are made better if we only have a few children, so we can afford to pay for their education, but in a region like Darfur, having just 2 children and hoping for the best probably means none of your children will make it to adulthood...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I thought it was because the UK doesn't have a Plea bargain agreement system, it would break UK law.
So the US basically said accept our plea or end up in prison for life. I think thats where the human rights issue also comes in.
One of the biggest problems with US law is the plea bargain system, thats why the laws are so horrible, it makes people want to bargain instead of going to court. Its not to punish people, its to keep everyone out of jury trials.
Hell, if everyone went to a trial for everything, could you imagine the crippling effect it would have on the courts? Everyone citizen would have to pull multiple jury trails to keep up with it.
I can see from your member number how you would have missed that discussion. I think everyone finally got tired of pointing it out. The editors and much of the newer members fit, lets say, a wider interpretation of the profile you might expect. Slashdot has gotten big. It's still fun, but don't expect it to be too rootsy. More like techsploitation. Like The Register, only without the witty write-ups but much funnier comments (trolls, idiots as well as the good ones).
Still, usually a good laugh to be found.
Quack, quack.
I'm surprised that this is even possible. Germanys constitution forbids the extradition of German citizens I actually thought it was the same for the UK. Well guess I was wrong.
Britain is America's poodle. This guy, for all intends and purposes, has to be tried in the UK, by the British system. Does the USA extradite American nationals to the UK? Do they extradite them e.g. to Italy, where several CIA agents have been sentenced (in absentia) for conspiracy?
Industrialized countries all used to have similarly have high birthrates until life expectancy started increasing as better hygiene and medicine made an impact together with improved food availability, and particularly as infant mortality dropped.
However, birth rates in most sub-Saharan countries have now finally started falling, coinciding with growing urbanization, and steadily dropping infant mortality. In fact, in some countries the birth rate have dropped by 20-30 percent over the last couple of decades.
The particularly high birth rates over the last decades was similar to those found in Europe a century ago, just as the effects of reducing infant mortality was creating a huge gap because people were still reproducing according to the old patterns. Further reductions in infant mortality combined with education and improved availability of contraceptives was what closed that gap and brought European birthrates down over the following decades.
My God! It's full of trolls!
Sorry. Couldn't resist
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
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.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
In the dark ages, it was decided that too many people were wrongly convicted, so the only want to punish people was if they confessed. This seems like a good idea, but the implementation was such that people were tortured to extract confessions... However, everyone punished had confessed.
Now, we make the series of laws increasing complex, so anyone can be convicted of 5-10 things, each carrying 1+ year as a sentence. Net effect, if the cops think that they have evidence that you committed a petty crime (carrying a 2-4 year sentence), but are concerned that they can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, no big deal. The prosecutor piles on 5-15 charges, so that if convicted, you'd fact 25-50 years in prison, but offers you a "deal" of 1 year in prison to "plead guilty."
Net effect? Cases never go to trial, and everyone confesses... we've traded our right to a jury trial to our ability to "negotiate" a deal with the prosecutor... The alledged perp might go to court to fight a 2-4 year sentence, but if the choice is sign for 1 year, or fight and risk 50 years... well, everyone takes the plea bargain and "gets off easy."