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."

Comments

Oh dear , how naive

[Viol8]

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.

A little perspective from the UK

[Gandalf_the_Beardy]

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.

Re:A little perspective from the UK

[Xest]

"I rather suspect that that imbalance is what causes many people much disquiet."

Actually, I suspect it's largely patriotism. No one wants to see one of their citizens handed over to a foreign power with no worthwhile favour in return, and yet, that's exactly what the Labour government was proposing.

I'd wager this has been fed by the fact we've got some of our soldiers dying in a war, that, once you cut away the rhetoric, really had fuck all to do with us, and made us less secure in that we're not as much a target as the US- prior to that, we weren't really a target for Islamic terorism because we were so tolerant of islamic communities. It's further not helped by the fact that when the US manages to kill some of our soldiers in a friendly fire "accident" (I wouldn't call it an accident, I'd call it incompetence) they refuse to assist in the coroners investigation by witholding the gun cameras. Add to this the threats of withdrawing security cooperation with us when our courts wanted to release evidence of our secure services being complicit in torture of British citizens by US forces and you begin to see why there is such a backlash.

Probably, if the US hadn't been so difficult over so many things over the last decade, despite us giving them something that can't really have a value put on it - the blood and lives of our soldiers in support of their war - then they could've gotten away with this extradition and a lot of people wouldn't have even batted an eyelid at the case.

But no that didn't happen, and so people in the UK have simply had enough, and McKinnon has become the catalyst for which people are standing up and demanding that our government starts saying no to the US.

Re:If you get paid into a foreign bank account...

[macshit]

... 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.

Re:But now

[ConfusedVorlon]

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.

My take on this as an American

[FreeUser]

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.