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In UK, Hacker Demands New Government Block Extradition
Stoobalou writes "Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon has called on the newly elected British government to put its money where its mouth is and tear up his extradition order. US prosecutors have been trying to get McKinnon before a New Jersey court for seven years after they caught him hacking into US military and NASA computers looking for evidence of UFOs. David Cameron, the newly elected prime minister, and Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, had both voiced their support for McKinnon's campaign against extradition. Other ministers in the coalition government had branded the extradition unjust. Clegg had even joined McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp, on a protest march."
Expecting politicians to turn vague electioneering rhetoric into actual action.
McKinnons case will be quietly shuffled off to some under secretary to "look into" and once the media have lost interest he'll be on a plane to Dulles.
Say he fired a cruise missile at the whitehouse from the UK should he be tried in the UK?
Obviously, yes.
However I see the structure in your sentence implies the answer might be "No". And answer I can't even imagine.
Now I'm interested in anyone's explanation on why would someone have to face a legal process that's not of his country.
I'd welcome any other similar example too. Paying another country's taxes, electing another country's president (Ok, forget that last one if you're CIA).
Whilst it's undeniable I think that he did actual do it, there are a lot of people that cannot see why he should be extradited. The UK already has adaquate laws for the prosecution of the crime, and the crime was committed in the UK so it has always seemed odd to a lot of people that he should have been extradited, especially with the massive imbalance in potential sentence between the UK and US for this. I rather suspect that that imbalance is what causes many people much disquiet.
Cameron is not going to be too concerned either way one suspects, although he will probably lean towards not extraditing him. Clegg however as a hard and a fast Liberal is almost certainly going to move all that he can to ensure he is not extradited. The one person to consider though in all this is Kenneth Clarke, whos is the Justice Secretary. He has interesting views - he once called Camerons plans for a British Bill of Rights "Xenophobic and a legal nonsensity". Quite what his feelings are on the extradition - and he gets the ultimate say as Justice Minister are as yet unknown. From what little I know of him personally I suspect he would favour prosecution in the UK but for all that his views are relatively unknown.
The treaty was written and signed to combat terrorism. Is he a terrorist? I doubt it. Is it worth the cost to get him to the US to be tried? I doubt that too. For fuck sake go after the real terrorists rather than a misguided individual with a mental disorder who believes in aliens. FFS the US should be thanking him for finding security flaws and not selling them to someone else. In this case I say FUCK THE TREATY!
Lib Dems are big on civil liberties, Conservatives will want to both undermine Labour and show themselves to be strong.
Blocking the extradition would give both leaders brownie points with their own MPs. They'll want to stifle any murmurs of discontent from MPs who weren't to happy at their leaders 'selling out' their core values to get in power.
... then how are they going to know how much you earn anyway? Surely you could just tell them anything and end up paying little or no tax?
In my experience, that's what usually seems to happen: people just ignore this law because it's almost impossible to enforce in many cases.
The exception is where the person still has a significant legal connection with the U.S. -- for instance, someone who works for a U.S. company in one of their foreign offices, and is paid by the U.S. arm of the company. Even in that case, there's a pretty large exemption on which you don't have to pay U.S. taxes, which pretty much covers your entire salary unless you're very well paid.
Because of the large exemption, the IRS also has little incentive to even try to enforce the law unless you're an executive or something and they suspect you have a substantial salary.
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The issue here isn't what he did and where, it's a question of excessive and inhumane punishment. In the UK, he'd be expected to get maybe 2 years in a minimum security prison, probably with an order preventing internet access for a couple of years, maybe a fine or some form of remuneration to the US gooberment. In the US, he faces fifty years in your oh so popular Federal PMITA prison system.
Remember: He fully admitted breaching the systems described; He had no malicious intent, he was investigating UFO cover-ups; He has recently been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, and professional medical opinion is that he will fulfil his stated intention to commit suicide if extradited to the US for trial; The access he obtained was extremely easy to obtain, and would most likely have been abused by a malicious attacker had it not been discovered by Garry's actions.
Garry is guilty of illegally accessing government computer systems in the US, but the sentencing guidelines would put him at at least 70 years old when he is released. There are no words for how inappropriate that is.
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Lets say that I send information about bypassing censorship to someone living in China. Should I be sent to China to be prosecuted about this? Of course not: The deed should be judged based on the laws of the country where I was when I committed the deed. Even if the target is in another country.
Now, you can say "But that isn't illegal in the country in which you live. It is different.". I don't think that changes anything (because it still means that I should be judged by the country in which I am) but let's look at another example where this isn't the case.
Let's say I download the latest blockbuster movie through the bittorrent network. It is illegal here and it is illegal in the USA. Most likely the company that owns the rights to the movie is in USA and it might even be that some of the people I downloaded the movie from (for simplicty's sake, let's even say that all of them) could be located in the USA. Does that mean that I should be sent to USA to be prosecuted instead of being prosecuted by them in the justice system of this country? I certainly don't see the logic here.
The guy lives in UK and was in UK when the crime was committed. As such, can you explain why he should be sent to USA to be prosecuted instead of being trialed in the UK, in a way that is also consistent on your views about the two examples I gave. Naturally, if you disagree with me (that the people in those examples should be sent to China and USA respectively), it becomes a very easy task.
This is what happened to the NatWest Three, a UK based offence against a UK bank. Of course they were extradited to Texas where it was felt they could hit them with more offences for longer sentencing and with an easier conviction (of course there is a huge tinfoil hat conspiracy regarding using these as fall guys in a forced plea bargain to cover up Bush administration involvement in the Enron scandal but that is an argument for another day)
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2003/ukpga_20030041_en_1
that's the problem in this case. Under the new 'fast track' extradidion, a British court never gets to consider whether there is evidence to justify the charge.
That's important in this case, because although Gary admits that he hacked the computers, the key point is what level of damage he did. There is a strong implication that the damage numbers were concocted in order to meet the threshhold required to justify extradition.
Essentially, in order for the extradition to work, the US have to state damages above a certain level. Gary's team contest that the $700k damages alleged were simply concocted to meet this level.
Given that Gary hacked into computers that just had the default windows password set - and that the damage was calculated by figuring the cost to audit and fix this breach, there is at least an argument that this should have been done anyway, and isn't damage caused by Gary.
Unfortunately, Gary doesn't get to make that argument until after extradition.
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What is the difference between hacking the Pentagon because you believe in aliens and hacking the Pentagon because you believe in Allah?
Everything.
While the mechanics of cracking system security may be the same, what you intend to do with the information you uncover, and your broader intentions against the US (if any) are very different.
In the case of Aliens, you're not exactly looking to fly planes into buildings, blow up cars in Times Square, or behead journalists. In the case of Allah, these intentions have already been demonstrated rather unequivocally in the real world, so extrapolating threats based on variations of past performance is not unreasonable, nor likely to yield broadly inaccurate predictions. Until flying-saucer nuts start threatening non-believers with death and mayhem, I'll tend to treat them as harmless eccentrics rather than potential terrorists, even when they cross the line and stupidly try to break into military computers.
There's absolutely no reason for the US to go after this guy--he's got a mental disorder, has already been severely chastened for his actions, is clearly not a threat to the US (or anyone else), and isn't likely to survive the so-called 'justice' America has in store for him.
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It seems to make it reasonably okay to me. The point of the law isn't to be a set of rules that exists solely for the point of having rules, like some sort of game-theory problem or videogame diversion, but to keep society reasonably in order. On the list of things that cause significant problems for society, and which are worth allocating resources and authority to stop, a crackpot trying to find UFO evidence is pretty low; the only real damage such a person causes is essentially accidental, and doesn't seem worth extraditing someone to another country or jailing them for decades over (even if you're purely selfish: remember, jailing people for decades costs you lots and lots of money).
I'd say the proper response to a slightly crazy person breaking into computers to find UFO evidence is to institutionalize them for some period, and then try to wean them back into society, probably while keeping their computer use restricted or monitored initially.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1) 50 years in PMITA prison is *not* commensurate to the crime
2) The level of damages has been inflated to include *actions they should already have taken* in order to justify the extradition.
3) He has ASKED to be tried in the UK, where the actual act AND intent were committed.
Out of genuine interest: do you believe he's likely to face 'reasonable' consequences for his actions if tried in the US?
This is a man with a slight mental illness who used default passwords on public-facing servers to look for evidence of UFOs. Stupid as hell, sure, and probably deserving of some level of punishment (although I'd be inclined to suggest psychiatric treatment), but not remotely worthy of several decades in an American federal prison, IMO.
Do you think he would realistically get less than ten years if tried in the US on national security related charges? Do you think that would be an acceptable punishment if he were sentenced as such?