UK Hacker Loses Extradition Appeal

the4thdimension writes "A UK man, accused of breaking into US Pentagon and NASA computers in March 2001, lost an extradition appeal that would have freed him, or at least had him tried in the UK. While the US accuses him of causing over $900,000 in computer damage, his attorney asserts that, if extradited to the US, he faces harsh penalties that are "intolerable" and '...the British government declined to prosecute him to enable the U.S. government to make an example of him.' He intends to appeal to the European courts."

Comments

Ah the Uk

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK, acting like the US' fucking lapdog, again. If I were PM I'd be telling the US government where they can shove their 'special relationship' and their entirely one-sided extradition treaty. Then I'd tell them to put ACTA in the same place.

So, whaddya reckon chaps? Think Anonymous Coward could succeed Gordon Brown?

Re:Ah the Uk

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Some of us here in the States are pretty fed up with the US throwing its weight around on the world stage, also.

Re:Ah the Uk

[G0rAk]

We discuss this point every time Gary McKinnon's case comes up, but lets go over the problems with the UK-US fast track extradition agreement one more time:

The agreement is supposed to be reciprocal however the US have not implemented their end of it. We can not fast track the extradition of US citizens but any UK citizen can be fast tracked. All of this was introduced to "fight terrorism" but has largely been used for cases like this and the NatWest Three.

Secondly our law forbids the extradition of persons to countries where they may face inhuman or unreasonable punishment. As such all states which implement the death penalty fall under this heading. The US should fall under this heading.

There are many other reasons why the UK can rightly be labelled a lap dog unrelated to these issues, our Special Relationship with the US is largely asking how high when told to jump.

Re:Ah the Uk

[FireStormZ]

I assume youre talking about this?

"Article 8

        Extradition Procedures and Required Documents. Article 8 establishes the procedures and describes the documents that are required to support a request for extradition. All requests for extradition shall be submitted through the diplomatic channel. Among other requirements, Article 8(3) provides that a request for the extradition of a person sought for prosecution must be supported by: (a) a copy of the warrant or order of arrest issued by a judge or other competent authority; (b) a copy of the charging document, if any; and (c) for requests to the United States, such information as would provide a reasonable basis to believe that the person sought committed the offense for which extradition is sought. The Treaty will not change the evidentiary burden required for extradition requests to the United States. ***However, under the new Treaty, the evidentiary requirements for extradition from the United Kingdom are lowered from a "prima facie" standard to what in practice will constitute a U.S. probable cause standard."***

The standards are the same, the UK bar was lowered to meet the US standard..

one-way treaty

[cliffski]

For me the big story is the one-sided nature of this treaty. We regularly extradite suspects to the USA, yet the USA refuses to do the same for people living in the USA wanted for crimes in the UK.
That's just insane, and our government are spineless scum for agreeing to it.

Re:one-way treaty

[Frosty Piss]

That's because the UK is our bitch. Come on now, you know it's true.

Re:one-way treaty

[pzs]

Luckily, the policy positions of the UK government do not entirely represent the UK, otherwise I'd completely agree with you.

Outside of the spineless lap-dogs in the government, we still have art, music, comedy and other culture that is very much independent of the United States (although, of course, influenced by US culture) and still worth something.

I may not be very proud of my government but I am (occasionally) proud of the citizens of the UK.

Re:one-way treaty

[SimonGhent]

However, if plays nice and owns up to all the stuff he says he didn't do but they claim he did

Not quite true.

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2005/jul/09/weekend7.weekend2:

Gary was kept in a police station overnight. Then the Americans offered him a deal, via his British solicitor. "They said, 'If you incur the cost of the whole extradition process, be a good boy, come over here, we'll give you three or four years, rather than the whole sentence.' I said, 'OK, give me that in writing.' They said, 'Oh no, we can't do that.' So they were offering a secret trial, no right of appeal on the outcome, no comment to the newspapers, and nothing in writing. My solicitor, doing her job, advised me to take it, and when I said no, she was very, 'Ooh, they're going to come down heavy.'"

Also, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/27/internationalcrime.hacking...

In a further twist, it has emerged that a crucial file containing details of the early meetings with the US prosecutors, at which the offers were apparently made, has gone missing from the office of McKinnon's solicitor. A laptop holding details of the same meetings was stolen from the car of one of his barristers.

Re:one-way treaty

[Richard W.M. Jones]

Just when has the US refused to extradite a suspect to the UK say in the last ten years?

Very recently actually. When British journalist Terry Lloyd was shot by US forces in Iraq, the US refused to cooperate or extradite any troops to face trial here. The case had to dropped entirely (just this week).

Rich.

Duh

[Wiarumas]

From TFA: "Prosecutors allege that McKinnon hacked into than 90 computer systems belonging to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Defense and NASA between February 2001 and March 2002, causing $900,000 worth of damage.

McKinnon has acknowledged accessing the computers, but he disputes the reported damage and said he did it because he wanted to find evidence that America was concealing the existence of aliens."

Duh. The only reason this topic may recieve negative attention is because its the United States. Truth be told, that if this was ANY country, the same thing would have happened. What did he expect? We are talking about highly classified stuff. He may have not caused as much as the claimed damage, but he DID access them. In some countries, he would be executed...

Re:Duh

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I think the sysadmins who set up a "secure military system" that could be breached by an amateur on the internet should be executed.

Re:Duh

[GauteL]

"Duh. The only reason this topic may recieve negative attention is because its the United States"

No, the reason is that the UK extradites its own citizens to a foreign country for crimes commited in the UK, when it can't be completely sure of its citizen being given a fair trial.

As it stands he is a foreigner in the US in a harsh political climate which makes it quite likely he could get convicted a terrorist even if he is just a "good old" computer criminal. At the very least he will feel forced to plea bargain for a very bad deal.

The extradition treaty is also completely one-sided, in that the US does not need to extradite its own citizens to the UK. The deal is shameful.

Re:Duh

[Tim C]

I were stood on the Mexico side of the border and you on the US side and I shot you, I would have committed my crime in Mexico, no? Same thing, greater distance involved.

Re:Not a death penalty case

[darien]

The linked story doesn't mention it, but he says he was told by US government officials that if he didn't plead guilty and agree to be extradited, he could be facing sixty years in prison.

Re:Not a death penalty case

[sunking2]

Guess he should have thought about that a little earlier. People are responsible for their own actions. What did he think would happen? Nobody's fault but his own that he didn't think things through well enough.

Re:I remember this guy

[z0idberg]

IIRC the $900,000 wasnt due to actual damage he caused, it was the cost of "securing" these systems after they realised anyone with half a clue and an internet connection could compromise their machines. How they figure that is his fault rather than actually part of the cost of their network I'm not sure.

Re:I remember this guy

[G0rAk]

Didn't he just use Microsoft's Remote Desktop to "hack into" those systems?

Yes. He in fact exploited weak passwords - most commonly "administrator" and a blank password or a password of "password".

More curiously he ran a netstat on the boxes he compromised and viewed connections from other crackers whose IPs addresses put them all over the middle east and China.

This according to the BBC interview we previously discussed.

Re:I remember this guy

[blindd0t]

$900,000 makes it sound like he may have downloaded a song or two off one or more of the servers he 'hacked'. I'm being facetious, of course. ^_^

Re:Crappy retarded cliché

[phillous]

This story has been in the British press for a few days, and I find the whole thing disgusting. As mentioned elsewhere, the $900k was the cost of securing these systems after this guys just walked in with default windows passwords... The stupid thing is that the whole case is based around this guys being a fucking terrorist... OH NOES SOMEONE DID SOMETHING TO WRONG AMERICA... They are a terrorist and should be locked away forever... if he wasn't from the UK they'd probably decide to bomb his fucking hometown as well.

He did not cause $900k of damages

[Nicolas MONNET]

$900k was IMO the cost of securing systems that were not secure in the first place.

You won't find a society anywhere on earth which doesn't have such laws.

Well my country doesn't extradite its own citizens.